Derek was one block away the studio when he realized he was humming to himself. The realization caused him to come to a dead stop on the sidewalk. What was happening here? He was acting down right chipper. At any moment he might start skipping or belting out show tunes. He assessed his emotions and discovered he was feeling particularly good this morning. Generally he associated this kind of good mood with a great success of some kind, like winning an award, signing a contract for an obscene amount of money, or having incredible sex with an 'unattainable' woman. To his knowledge none of those things had happened last night, so why was he practically swinging from lamp posts? Alright, he didn't really need to ask. It was Karen. He was rather pleased, both about what transpired last night, and that he would be seeing her again this morning. It was a touch pathetic, but there it was.

"Derek, we need to talk." Ivy. Her waiting for him outside the studio effectively killed his buzz.

"Ivy. Rehearsal starts in five minutes. We can talk about whatever it is later." Personal drama had no place during workshop hours. Was it too much ask that the woman he'd cast as the lead act like a professional?

"Later, right, because later would be better for you."

"Yes, it would." Derek tried to step around her toward the door, but Ivy blocked his path.

"Well, it's not better for me. But why would that matter to you, what's better for me, when it never has before? Why should today be any different?" Ivy was performing her wronged girlfriend impersonation. It may have working better on him, if they had actually been dating.

"Ivy, we don't have time for this conversation-"

"Make time. You're the director, I'm the star; they're not starting without us." It was his own fault; he had slept with her and then given her the lead. Why did he not think that was going to come back and bite him in the ass? If they were going to have any hope of accomplishing anything useful today, he was going to need to hear her out.

"What's so urgent that it couldn't wait?"

"I saw you last night." That was unexpected.

"You saw me…?" He hoped she'd seen him when he'd gone out for Chinese, but somehow he didn't think that was what she'd been implying.

"I saw you with her." This wasn't good.

"'Her?'" With any luck she hadn't seen which gorgeous brunette he'd been with.

"Karen Cartwright, Derek. I saw you take Karen Cartwright back to your apartment." Naturally luck had not been with him. It was time for a little verbal redirection.

"How exactly did you see that?" It was a legitimate question and they say that the best defense is a good offense.

"I was waiting for you inside the lobby when the two of you swanned in at 12:30 am." How exactly had Derek missed her? He supposed he did have his hands full with Karen at the time, but he still should have been observant enough to notice his lover sulking in the near vicinity.

"I don't recall ever inviting over you to my apartment, so how did you know where I lived?" His number wasn't listed, so tracking him down couldn't have been easy.

"Believe me, I'm more than aware that after eight months I still haven't seen your apartment. Guess that kitchen needed a lot of work? But I guess Karen wasn't really all that interested in you cooking facilities." Derek noted she hadn't answered his question and had managed to turn his accusation back on him. Tit for tat. She'd didn't want to divulge how she'd gotten his address, and he hadn't been truthful when he'd told her why he didn't want her in his apartment.

"Right, so you're dodging the question about having my address. How about telling me why you were there?"

"I thought I'd drop by and give you a nice Christmas surprise." It certainly would have been a surprise. He'd been deliberately keeping her away from his apartment and Ivy apparently knew that. Still she'd hoped to gain entry last night, ostensibly as a spontaneous sexual rendezvous. Except it couldn't have been all that spontaneous, if she'd gone through the trouble of tracking down his address and staking out his apartment until he'd come home. Ivy had been after something, apart from a late night booty call. She was obviously insecure and had hoped to solidify her position by manipulating her way into his private domain. Derek had no idea whether it was her position as his lover or her position as his lead she was worried about. In her mind Derek suspected the two were inexorably linked.

"I told you I would be working through the holiday, and that you should make other plans." He had a strict policy to never spend the holidays with women, because it carried heavy implications to anyone without a Y chromosome. Derek may have been a cad, but he prided himself on not letting his lovers believe he was more committed to them than he actually was.

"Working? Yeah, you were working something." He had taken about as much of this routine as he was willing to take.

"Ivy, is there a point to this conversation? Do we really need to be holding up rehearsal, so you can stand out here and make snide accusations? Frankly, I have better things to do with my time."

"You owe me an explanation." Ivy delivered the line in classic jilted lover persona. Derek had no use for theatrics in his personal life.

"First, I don't owe you anything. We never established anything resembling rules about our association, which from my perspective has been based on a mutual enjoyment of each other's company. I apologize if I gave any impressions to the contrary. Second, why ask for an explanation at all, when you've already made up your mind that Karen and I have been making the beast with two backs?" What woman actually believed a man when the man claimed fidelity after being spotted in a compromising situation? The truth didn't matter, one way or the other.

"So you are sleeping with her."

"I didn't say that, I just said that is what you've already decided happened."

"So you're saying you didn't sleep with her?" If this situation had only impacted himself, Derek would have told Ivy to think whatever she'd wanted to think. However, it also involved Karen and she didn't deserve to have her reputation sullied by whatever slander Ivy planned on relying to her devoted following.

"Pay attention, because I'm only going to say this once: Karen and I have never slept together. We encountered each other by chance last night. Drinking ensued. I couldn't get Karen home, so I took her back to my apartment, put her to bed, and slept on the couch. Not quite as a salacious as the scenario you imagined, but it happens to be the truth." God he hoped that was the last time he needed to rehash the events from last night.

"Do I look like an idiot?"

"You certainly sound like one."

"Karen Cartwright has been trying to steal this show out from under me since day one! You expect me to believe it's a coincidence she managed to score an invite back to your ever so sacred apartment?" There went Ivy's paranoia, right on cue. Paranoia, he had to admit he encouraged from time to time, whenever he felt Ivy was getting complacent in her role, but in this situation it had no use to him.

"Yes, she was very canny getting herself so smashed she couldn't stand upright." Unlike Ivy, Karen had no interested in playing games with him. Well, the manipulative kind at any rate.

"Wake up Derek! Playing the damsel in distress is Seduction 101. I can't believe you, of all people, were dumb enough to fall for it." If Karen wanted to sleep with him, she wouldn't have needed to any seduction tactics more complicated than a crooked finger.

"If it was any other actress besides Karen, I might be tempted to believe you. However, I know for a fact that KAREN wouldn't stoop to sleeping me in order to win a role." If anything positive had come out of that first encounter, it was that he knew that Karen had integrity. He couldn't as confidently say the same about Ivy.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means whatever you think it means. Now, if that's all, I'd like to get to work on the drama we're actually getting paid for."