Chapter notes: none this week. Enjoy!

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One of the strangest things Casey had seen the previous night was the relationship between Danny and Addy. He seemed never to take his eyes off her, and she indeed did flirt intimately with him, her lips brushing his ear and smiling seductively. But she did the same to Derek, as well.

"Addy and Danny are technically together. They just fight all the time and fuck other people." Derek spoke conversationally over their lunch. They had gone out to a little restaurant at Derek's request. "Which always pisses the other off. Then they fight and fuck some other people…"

Casey nodded, trying not to show her intrigue. "Joanne seems really sweet," she offered, trying to change the subject.

Derek shrugged and shoved more of his steak into his mouth. Casey realized with a slight drop in her stomach that she would undoubtedly be footing the bill for this outing.

"Yeah, she's all right." He swallowed another bite of food. "Joey found somebody to share a joint with now and then."

"How are they doing in terms of getting a contract?" Casey asked. She didn't particularly want to discuss marijuana anymore.

Derek shrugged. "I'm arranging something…"

He looked up at Casey, his liquid brown eyes focused on hers. Casey's breath hitched. All the hard work she had put into the previous night was about to be undone with one glance. It had taken her quite a few sleepless hours to convince herself that she was drunk – though none of the usual signs were there – and that old memories were just resurfacing. She had convinced herself of that completely, and now, though the alcohol had been flushed completely out of her system, she could hear her heart accelerate.

Look away, she told herself quickly. She looked down at her salad. She gulped, having suddenly forgotten what the conversation was about.

Casey had expected that reaction to dull with the years, but even now looking straight into his eyes was like a jolt to the heart. That same jolt was what prompted her to kiss him that first time, when they were fresh out of high school. They fell in love, which miraculously lasted through college. What George and Nora thought was at first shocked and incoherent, then accepting as time went on. They had graduated college, Derek just barely scraping through, and Casey had even gotten Derek talk about the Dark and Ominous Future with her. And then that stupid test with the instructions; "pregnant," "not pregnant," and the vomiting and…

Casey was still looking as her salad, the fork hovering in midair like somebody had frozen her suddenly.

"Hey!" Derek snapped his fingers under her nose to get her attention. "Earth to Spaz…"

Casey jumped and looked up, a bit dazed from the memories that swam though her like a dam had been blown up. Derek's brown eyes were now even softer with concern.

"Sorry." Casey turned her attention back to her food.

"Tell me more about Katie," Derek said, his eyes still boring into hers.

Casey sighed. She somehow didn't want to give too much away, to let Derek see the full picture. It would make Katie too accessible to him. "What do you want to know?" she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Everything. Does she take anything else besides ballet?"

"Yes. She takes jazz and modern dance classes, and the piano, plus she's in the gifted program at school, and we're thinking of starting gymnastics soon."

"Jesus, she doesn't have any free time, does she?" Derek asked, clearly disapproving.

Casey bristled at this remark. Who was he to comment on her abilities as a mother? "She likes everything I sign her up for. She likes to keep busy. She inherited that from me."

Derek nodded slowly. "What did she inherit from me?" he asked, a bit hesitantly.

Casey sighed. "She loves music. The Beatles and the Doors and stuff. She loves staying up late. She's very social; one of the most popular girls at her day care center. She loves doing all these activities but she almost never stresses out; it comes naturally from her. Plus … I see you in her all the time." It was painful for Casey to admit this; when she saw these traits evolve in her daughter, she was frightened as to how much of Derek would show up in her. "I see it sometimes when she looks at me, just in the character of her face, even though she has my eyes."

Derek just nodded again, smiling this time. The conversation lapsed into silence, leaving Derek to sort through all the new information, and Casey to stew in confusion. What did all this mean? Where was it leading to? Why did he come back now? Thoughts that she had kept buried for the past week suddenly turned up again. The questions filled her up slowly.

"Why did you leave?" she blurted out suddenly.

"Because, I…" Derek hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with where the conversation had gone. "Because I broke Sam's jaw," he answered, as though it were obvious.

Casey looked down and nodded.

"And…because I knew I fucked up with Lizzie."

Hearing him say Elizabeth Akot's name, the name of the girl that Derek had found after that vitriolic fight, sent a shiver of distaste through her.

"I said some things I didn't mean…" Casey started, as though that made up for what Derek did in some way. As though it made up for what she did with Sam.

Derek shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I fucked up with her."

Casey shook her head to clear it. It had been so long that she had wondered if this conversation would ever come, and now it was suddenly coming at her from this unexpected angle, in the middle of a little restaurant in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

She sighed. "Yeah. You did." Admitting to all the blame she had pent up inside her, even by a little bit, made her feel like a heavy pressure was being lifted from her. "But, I f- … I messed up with Sam," she squeaked. "I really messed up. And for everything I said…"

"Hey, I said stupid shit, too." Derek leaned forward on the table, staring right into her eyes until she looked up to meet them. "I'm sorry," he said with fierce sincerity as he grasped her hand suddenly. His hand felt warm and strong covering hers and Casey stopped breathing.

Instinctively, Casey jerked her hand away so that her lungs could fill with air.

"Anything else?" the chipper little waitress asked as she bounced over, saving Casey from having to say anything.

"Check please," Casey said softly as she started fumbling with her purse.

"Sorry," Derek tried. "I didn't mean to—"

"Yeah." Casey forced a smile. She paid quickly with cash and rushed the both of them out of the little restaurant.

"Hey, let me pay you back—" Derek stuttered awkwardly.

"What are you talking about?" Casey asked, a little crease forming between her eyes. "It's fine." She reached out an arm to hail a cab. One pulled up next to her almost immediately.

"I'm going to pick Katie up from piano lessons," she said softly, her eyes cast down toward the pavement.

"She's in piano?" Derek asked, leaning into the cab after her.

Casey nodded. She looked up once at Derek's face and an icy thrill went through her. She pulled the door closed and spoke through the open window. "See you tonight."

Casey examined her hand carefully as the cab pulled away from the sunny street. She could remember distinctly where Derek's skin had touched hers. She wasn't particularly unnerved by physical contact, it was just proving to be incredibly difficult to let Derek back inside. When their shoulders touched accidentally, Casey wouldn't dream of pulling away, but when he reached out she filled with fear and flinched back. She sighed loudly enough for the cab driver to glance at her through the rearview mirror.

It smelled like tobacco in the plush leather-and-carpet interior of the car and Casey cracked a window. Middle-Eastern music played softly in the background. She thought of Katie, and how she recognized Derek as little more than a stranger. How had life gotten so complicated so suddenly?

What Casey really didn't want to admit to herself, the secret that she kept buried in the farthest recesses of her mind, was that Derek meant more to her than any ex-boyfriend from years ago ever could. He was her stepbrother and her daughter's father; two families tied them together in different ways and it was ultimately stupid to assume that she could rid herself of him.

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