Another year and a half. What can I say? I suck. I'm trying to finish all my stories before I lose the internet again- I'm moving out to be poor and lonely AGAIN. Here goes. Short. But updated. Beggars or choosers? Tried to proof-read, but I'm fairly tossed and trying to hurry. Please enjoy and forgive me for the wait. Fail.
Summary:After having a serious accident, Derek looms around the house unseen, learning things about his family he never expected. Eventual Dasey.
Disclaimer: I own neither Live With Derek nor The Invisible.
The Invisible
Worried and Impatient
Casey's eyes scrunched together as she tried to get them to focus on the receptionist in front of her. Her slow, tired mind took it's time to process the nurse's response.
"Do you know someone that's come in, sweety?" The receptionist picked her head up out of her hand and leaned forward to focus more completely on Casey. No doubt she was wondering if the teenager standing at her desk needed to be admitted.
"Yeah," Casey answered, a lie. She felt off-put to hear this lady... girl call her 'sweety'. "A...a boy," she started, then shook her head and restarted. "A teenager... I don't know if he's here, I don't know if..."
The receptionist's eyebrows knit together over her deep brown eyes, waiting for Casey to finish her poorly structured sentence. "He's been missing, but I just know that he's here."
Derek sighed and leaned against the counter with one elbow. He threw his head to the side to get a few stray chunks of his tussled hair out of his eyes. "This isn't gonna work, Casey," he warned, watching her with worried and impatient eyes. There was no way the receptionist of the ER would give out any information to a minor who looked as though she could use a spin through the triage system as well.
"Well, honey, how do you know this boy?" 'Monica', Casey dully noticed the receptionist's nametag read, picked up a clipboard and flipped back a few pages to reveal a goldenrod sheet with a spreadsheet template printed out on it. From her side of the counter, Casey could only make out the lines of the table, a few of the rows crossed out with thick, black marker lines.
Derek saw this new sheet with all the dark corrections and felt a panic rise in him. Dark lines were never good. He threw a glance between Monica and Casey, and then decided to get the protected information himself. He took full advantage of being unseen, and walked around to the small opening in the counter next to a water dispenser and entered the 'Employees Only' side of the large wrap around desk. He kept one eye on Casey as she screwed up her face trying to think of the answer to the simple question, but looked down to the clipboard as well, looking for an update on himself.
This sheet was so much better than the sticky note that he had accidentally stumbled into at the hospital's front desk so few days ago. There were plenty more rows than the six descriptions he had seen then, but there were more rows with black lines through then than there were with penciled-in names. 'Judd, Darin' and 'Roberts, Crystal' were both lucky enough to be found. However, "Caucasian F, 13yr; Mon, 13: non-responsive, intensive care, (3-22)" and Derek himself, "Caucasian M, 18yr; Sat, 11, non-responsive, critical (2-19)" were the only two columns on the sheet without handwritten updates.
At least he was still alive.
"He's my... my step-brother. He was at a party on Friday. He's 17... Derek, his name is Derek."
Derek's head snapped up to Casey, catching her eyes drift in and out of focus as she thought of him, seemingly trying to use all her concentration to make his name appear on that list. He let his eyes slide down again to where the receptionist was comparing the 's on the list, her finger coming to rest on the only option.
"I only have one male patient here right now." She said, chewing her lip. Derek realized that she had more than likely been briefed on the story of 'the teenage upstairs', how he'd come in after a fight at a party early Saturday morning... it was impossible for him to miss the pieces fitting together in her eyes.
"Yes!" He hissed, too excited to care about the fact that he was more than likely too far gone to be saved, or even notice how Monica didn't light up as if she had just found a name for her two remaining missing persons. "Oh my god, Case, you found me. Yes! This is it!" Derek hopped over the counter, not caring that he knocked the brochures for insurance and grief counseling off onto the floor as he swung his feet over towards his hero.
He came to a stand still in front of her with his widest smile on his face, and took her shoulders in his hands to turn her to face him. Her eyes stayed glued on the clipboard and Derek shook her. "You found me! Casey," he sobered and stared at her eyelids when her unresponsive form refused to look up at something that wasn't really there. "Casey, you found me." He whispered, letting his eyes sweep over her entire face.
Casey gasped so slightly that the receptionist didn't notice, but Derek did and he dropped his arms reflexively. Casey's body turned back to where it should have been- it was never really moved in the first place. Casey reached up a hand to lightly finger the fabric of the oversized Carhart jacket where one of Derek's hands had been, and slowly slid her gaze over to the tile next to her feet, making sure it was still empty.
This time, Casey was positive. She heard him.
Nora slowly came up the stairs from her basement bedroom and flipped on the light in the kitchen. She was really starting to feel the lack of sleep and all the stress throughout her body; her joints were sore, her jaw was aching from clenching it, and her head pounded.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed a small flood of dim light coming from the third level down the stairs and into the living room. Nora saw that the LED clock on the stove said 2:51am, and turned off the light as she made her way over.
Apparently the second floor hallway in their London home had been turned into some kind of command central. The hall desk had been cleared of the books and homework, and now held Casey's laptop hummed with a slew of open internet windows open, George's cell phone, and about ten hot-pink Post-it notes with numbers and scribbles on them. Below that, on the floor, Edwin lay on his stomach on one of Lizzie's quilts with three different phone books open and a spiral with the makings of phone trees scribbled out. Marti served as a separating wall to where Lizzie herself was laying on the carpet with Derek's grade nine and ten yearbooks open to random pages, and the current years phone directory.
Marty was out cold, and Edwin and Lizzie were awake but looked as though they were about to crash.
"What's going on up here?" Nora asked gently, not wanting the frustration and stress of the overall situation to bleed through in her tone.
Edwin looked up at his step-mother with the biggest pair of Venturi-puppy-dog-eyes Nora had seen to date and let his head fall with a deep sigh. "We're failing, that's what." He answered and let his eyes slide shut.
"We're trying everything." Lizzie corrected, sending her step-brother a glare before giving her mother her own Precious Moments gaze. "But it's too late to call any classmates, so we're just making lists."
Edwin propped himself up on his elbows to continue the explanation. "And both their phones are off so we tried to call the phone company and get the GPS locator turned on for their phones, but..."
"Turns out that's not as easy as it looks on TV," Lizzie finished Edwin's dropped thought with an eye roll.
"Yeah, apparently it's more for the cops to use." Edwin started to try and sit up, but he appeared to have developed some stiffness in his own joints to match Nora's. He slowly turned to sit Indian style and continued, "Derek's history only showed one suspicious e-mail about a party on Friday, but it's too late to call the girl, and it's all the way in Warwick."
"And Warwick is Derek's rival school for hockey, so he wouldn't have gone there, not alone at least."
Edwin nodded at Lizzie. "Besides, the girl who threw the party didn't post anything weird on her MySpace about it, and it's too late to call her."
"You got into her MySpace?" Nora shook the thought, not wanting to know how or why, and continued before he could answer. "Look guys, you're both doing great with trying so hard, but it's late and if we start searching tomorrow we'll need you both rested."
"Mom," Lizzie said, sitting up herself. "Searching isn't going to help any. What are we going to search? The park? We don't have any huge lakes or woods or anything like that to search."
"Honey, you know the police will try, and-"
"Nora, we can't just sit and try and fail all day tomorrow. We have to do something real." Edwin stood up to look at Nora. She noticed for the first time that she didn't have to look down at him very far anymore.
Lizzie noticed the power-speech starting, and stood as well. "I don't want to walk around aimlessly, Mom, I want to find Casey and Derek."
Nora's sight seemed to almost buzz in and out of focus as she heard Lizzie's statement. She hadn't really though of both of her oldest children as missing until that moment. Suddenly the gaping hole in her chest doubled. The mother of five placed a hand over the tangible pain and sunk down into the desk chair.
I'd just like to thank everyone for the reviews I've gotten in the time between chapters. FF readers are among the most faithful! (Cept for me, of course.) Also, thanks for the folks that have secretly dropped little reminders through other stories' reviews to get off my butt and update this. I'm trying, I swear. It's hard for me to write anymore... but I'm trying! Please bear with me!
