They warn you in ante-natal classes that labour is a long drawn out process. They tell you that first labours are longer than subsequent ones. They mention there will be pain. Casey was a brave girl, she had put up with appendicitis for a whole day before she finally agreed to be admitted to hospital.

Labour however, was different.

Derek, supportive to the last, sat in the corner of the room alternating between watching the hockey and watching Casey.

"You're insane." He volunteered.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. If you have a headache, you take painkillers. Why won't you accept pain relief when you're in labour?"
"I want to do this the natural way." She said. He wasn't convinced. He crossed the room to where she was pacing and put an arm around her.

"The decision is yours, princess. But I for one am not going to think less of you if you need an epidural." Casey leaned on him.

"It hurts, Derek."

"No shit, babe." He chuckled and kissed her head, then pointed to the large blue object on the floor. "You wanna go on the space hopper again?"

"No. It made me feel sick. All that rolling my hips gave me motion sickness." She sighed. "Ring the damn bell, Derek I need an epidural."

He laughed.

By breakfast time, Casey was asleep. The epidural making her comfortable enough that the fact she had been up for twenty four hours suddenly hit her. The midwife encouraged her to go to sleep ready for the main event later. She also nagged Derek into doing the same.

Under the influence of the drip-fed drugs, Casey dreamt. She dreamt memories. She dreamt of going to college for the first time. She dreamt of New Derek. She dreamt of that night.


Casey and Derek's apartment in Kingston.

Casey was making cookies. It was her therapy. She felt she needed therapy, because the universe was gradually inverting itself.

The past few months had been weird. Hell, the past few years had been weird! Because the obnoxious step-brother she had brought to Queens had morphed unexpectedly into one of her best friends and she had no idea how it had happened.

First was the night they arrived in Kingston and moved into their apartment. It was cost-cutting on the part of their parents which made them share and Derek had made a big deal of how he was going to spend as much time as possible outside of the apartment and how Casey should let him know whenever she was planning on going home so that he knew he would have the apartment to himself, for 'entertaining'. The thought had made her go cold.

But that first night, after they had unloaded the car, he had knocked on the door to her room and when she answered, he had leant on the door frame.

"Come on Farmer Mac. I'm hungry and if you make me late for my food, I'm gonna prank you."

She frowned at him. "Come on where?"

He shrugged. "There's a diner down the street. If you come with me now, I'll pay but if you make me wait, it's on you."

Thoroughly confused, because this was the first time she had heard any mention of them eating together, Casey had grabbed her bag and followed him out of the apartment.

They had walked down the road together and he had thrown a casual, brotherly arm around her shoulders and given her a lecture on staying away from him so she didn't ruin his reputation. The diner was of course full of students, and she expected him to ditch her to chat up some faceless blonde whose name he wouldn't even remember the next day, but the reputation lecture continued through the meal and on the walk home.

They shared a couple of lectures (English and Media) and he always seemed to appear at the front door, ready to leave at exactly the same time as she did. There would be a complaint on his lips about something she had done so that they completed the walk to the lecture hall together fighting, and when they reached the room, he'd throw his bag under the desk next to hers and flick screwed up paper at her while the lecturer was speaking.

He didn't study like she did. When Casey was in the library burning the midnight oil, Derek was in the bar next door. He always timed it so that he emerged from the bar as she left the library. He would be drunk and there would be an elaborate kiss for the girl he'd picked up inside, then he would ditch the girl and stagger home beside Casey. The walk home was a good thing though, because he seemed to sober up a lot on that walk, which meant she never had to help him up the stairs or hold his head over the toilet bowl.

The years at college passed, and the final year came. Derek surprisingly seemed to be holding his own. He'd done well with hockey, but had turned down the idea of playing professionally, preferring instead to write about hockey and mess about with his camera. That blasted camera was always stuck up her nose. Every time she turned around, he was pointing it at her. They had arguments about it, and she would shout at him. Derek would click the shutter with a smirk, and then Casey would realise an angry Casey photograph had been the end goal all along.

He went out less because they had more work to do, and on the weekends, she would rent a lame movie and he would sit beside her on the sofa and pick holes in it till she threw a cushion at him with a muted "Der-ek!"

He would smirk and throw the cushion back and the game would continue until she was lying under him, being tickled and he would loom over her, his eyes sparkling at her laughter.

Then it would come; the moment when time stood still.

She lost count of how many times the movie night ended with one or other of them sitting up finally and saying "moron" or "lamebrain" quietly, then push themselves off the sofa and go to their room with a soft click of the door.

It probably happened once a week for five months.

Until it didn't.

Until the one time when he loomed over her eyes sparkling, and she didn't laugh.

Casey smiled.

And Derek kissed her.

They covered the indiscretion up the next day; pretended the kiss hadn't happened. Ignored each other for two weeks. He didn't walk with her to class anymore.

"This is stupid." Casey said one Saturday morning in their kitchen.

"Yes. You are." He retorted, scooping breakfast cereal into his mouth like it was about to be stolen by the honey monster.

"If I'm stupid, so are you." She fired back.

He raised his eyebrows at her, smirking.

"Der-ek!"

"Okay. What are we talking about?" he knew damn well.

"Us." Casey said. The amusement died from his face.

"What 'us'?"

She smiled, weakly. "That 'us'. The one that doesn't exist but we are so scared that one lousy kiss implies it does."

"I don't do lousy kisses."

"Okay. One not so lousy kiss. Derek. We're adults. We can handle this without pussyfooting around."

He finished his breakfast and moved to the sink to wash the bowl up. (Derek and washing up equals a long story he doesn't want to repeat, but Casey and unwashed bowls is not a combination he wants to see again in a hurry.)

"I don't pussyfoot." He looked at her seriously. "Casey just drop it okay. It's a dangerous area."

"We should talk about it."

"No we shouldn't. Really." He walked towards the door.

"Derek." Pleading.

"No, Casey."

Then he really wasn't talking to her.

So this Saturday evening she was baking cookies. She was doing it to make herself feel better, but also because Derek loved cookies and she sort of wanted to get their friendship back again.

Her timing was perfect because they came out of the oven, five minutes before he walked through the door from his shift at the same diner they had eaten in that first night.

He smelt the cookies as soon as he opened the door, he walked to the kitchen to investigate but when he saw Casey was in there, he moved away again. She felt her shoulders slump and turned to the kitchen window to hide her face.

She only saw the hand sneak four cookies from the plate out of the corner of her eye.

"Der-ek! That's greedy!" She cried.

He smirked and stuffed them into his mouth in one go before he left for his room.

Later as she sat on the sofa, he flopped down beside her.

"Where are the rest?" he said. "I've searched the kitchen. You've hidden them well."

"Maybe I ate them."

He laughed. "Yeah right. There were more than a dozen there."

Casey lifted the cushion between them to reveal a tin of cookies. He snatched it up and removed the lid.

She rolled her eyes. Derek relented and passed her back the tin. "Share them with me?"

"Does that mean you want to be friends again?"

Derek looked thoughtful. "Hmmm…are the cookies good enough for that?" He bit into one. "Okay!"

"You're an idiot."

"You're beautiful." He said. Deliberately. Pointedly. "And I want to kiss you every time I'm in the same room as you. I have done ever since we were fifteen. Living with you and not touching you is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. You are my step-sister and I should behave. But I can't."

Casey's eyes widened.

"I care about you more than I should, Case."

And then she was in his arms as willing a participant as he was, the cookies long forgotten.

They had spent the whole evening kissing…until…


Derek was dreaming too. If Casey dreams were rated 12, Derek's were rated NC-17.

Sharing an apartment with the girl you were fixated on…sucked. You could walk around the place, just minding your own business and then suddenly come across her in some position that made you want to leap into a cold shower. The trouble with the way Derek felt about Casey…even the way she did the laundry or washed up was erotic to him.

The temptation to catch her in a state of undress was unbelievable, and the night she finally let you kiss her…

He didn't know why he had leant over Casey and let his mouth meet hers for the first time. Correction, of course he did. She was beautiful, intelligent and that was something he had wanted to do since he was fifteen. But it couldn't continue. They were step-siblings. So they had broken apart and walked away- and ignored each other.

He felt her watching him, every day. He had watched her in return when she wasn't looking – he was better at hiding that sort of thing. It was excruciating.

He had already decided to give in the morning of the cookie fest. He just wasn't going to make it easy for her.

The admission that he cared about her had taken a lot. He knew he had never opened himself up as much before.

He had never cared this much before.

"I care about you more than I should, Case." He had said, honestly. Then he had watched as her fingers found his and weaved themselves into his hand. He felt the sofa cushions dip as she knelt up, and then smelled the heady scent of Casey as her lips found his.

"This is wrong." He had said. "Don't you care?"

Casey had smirked. "Screw it!" she replied.

Her spare hand found the back of his neck and their lips met.

All he remembered from that point on were the vivid colours a lack of oxygen gave him.

"You're good at this." He murmured.

"Only with you." She replied against his lips.

They kissed for hours, gentle kisses building. When they pulled apart, and he scooped her into his arms, they were both breathless.

"Don't think about this." He had ordered.

Casey had laughed. "I'm not backing down, Derek."

"Good." He had smirked.

Then after a pause while they watched some comedy programme he could remember nothing about, the kissing began again.

This time it was different; as though aware of the later hour and the more bewitching setting, the kisses were deeper, and their hands started to wander.

He wasn't sure who had started the clothing removal process. He suspected it might have been him; although he did remember trying to stop Casey removing his belt, but he didn't try very hard.

Derek did remember sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her to his room.

One minute they were touching and caressing, and then the next he was asking her permission.

She hadn't hesitated.

In retrospect, that was surprising, knowing what he knew now about her inexperience, but they were both carried away, maybe that was it. Casey hadn't behaved as though it was her first time. The climax came and afterwards they lay in each others arms, kissing softly, murmuring words they had held back for a very long time.

He didn't know who had started it that first time.

But it was Casey who touched him intimately and seduced him the second time.

And Derek was definitely not complaining.

The last time, the important time, the conception was actually the fourth time.

And passion aside, it was the most loving.

"Again? Derek." She had laughed as he started kissing her purposefully.

"I'm not letting you think about this too much. If you think about it, you might regret it. I'm not letting that happen."

Casey had sat up and looked at him properly. "I'm not going to regret this Derek."

He had sat up too, slipped his arms around her, and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"Be my future." She had nodded and let him pull her down again.


Casey woke in the hospital bed with a start and a gasp.

Derek was at her side in an instant.