A/N: It's a bit short, but I like it. It's just pretty much explaining what happened to them after the accident. And as for what happened to Derek, it was just a little heat of the moment idea, and I know I didn't hint at it in chapter twelve, but let's just pretend it was there and just wasn't brought to anyone's attention. :D haha

R&R, please!

-Jaclyn :)

Epilogue

"So, you're saying that while you were both in a coma, you were both in an alternate reality where Derek didn't exist?" A woman who looked like she had lived twenty lives with graying hair and wrinkles by her eyes looked at the two teenagers sitting across from her.

"Stop talking to us like we're crazy." Derek said through gritted teeth. Casey squeezed his hand gently, and he stopped talking, though his face gave away his anger toward the woman in front of him.

"Mr. Venturi, I am you psychiatrist, and I am just trying to find the root of the problem." The woman spoke patiently, as if explaining to a small child why he couldn't have a cookie before dinner.

"There is no 'problem'. Casey and I were in an accident, we were both sent into a comas, and we both were in an alternate reality until our deaths sent us back." He immediately regretted speaking, he sounded crazy to even himself, and he knew what had really happened. Casey bent her head; Derek was going to make them have even more appointments with this woman than they already had to.

"You see, that is simply impossible, perhaps you were dreaming while you were in this coma."

"Normal people in comas don't dream. And last I checked, it's near impossible to have two people dream the exact same dream at the exact same time."

"No, it's not impossible. It's rarely heard of, but not impossible."

"We didn't dream it, Mrs. Hackle, it really happened." Casey was tired of making Derek do all the talking. She was sure if she kept allowing it, Derek would grow even more angry and do something he would regret later.

"Miss McDonald, it is simply out of the question to believe that you and Mr. Venturi were sent to an alternate reality. It just doesn't happen."

"Then how do you explain that it just happens to be when Derek gets stabbed in this alternate reality that Derek wakes up from this coma?" Casey asked, realizing why Derek was losing his temper with this woman.

"It's possible the shock of seeing himself die in his dream caused him to wake up."

"Then how do you explain my situation?"

"Simple. Whatever you were going through in real life, you did during the dream. You say you felt pressure on your chest; that was the AED. You felt shocks in the dream; that was because the AED was shocking you. You say you felt your life slipping, that's because it was."

"I said I felt two lives slipping. How do you explain that?"

For once, Mrs. Hackle had nothing to say. But then she cleared her throat, and smiled, "It was just a dream. Perhaps in your dream you felt one life slip away, and in real life you felt the other."

"Or, she felt one life slip away in one reality, and the other life slip away in another." Derek said; the anger in his voice clear now.

Mrs. Hackle sighed, "There are no such things as alternate realities. They do not exist."

"But we were there. We have had thousands of dreams in our lifetimes, and these were different. I felt pain, he felt pain, we slept and we had dreams. I have never had a dream where I had a dream. It just hasn't happened before. I ate food, and I was satisfied; I could taste. Have you ever been able to taste anything in a dream before?"

"It is possible that your coma affected your dreams to seem like they were real."

"Why can't you just accept the fact that Casey and I were in an alternate reality, and the three of us can stop having this argument?"

"I will not just agree to something to avoid conflict. I am a psychiatrist and I will get to the root of this. But, alas, for now our time is done." She glanced at her watch and smiled up at the two, "I will see you here at the same time next week."

Derek stood up, but Casey stayed seated, staring at the woman, "You treat us like we're mentally ill or something. But you would be in the same position, arguing your case if you went through what we had to."

Derek's eyes went wide at her tone. She sounded angry, no dangerous. He put his hand on her shoulder, "Come on, Case, we can argue with her some more next week. Let's just go."

She shook her head, "This isn't going to go away. We're never going to agree with her, and she's never going to agree with us. We should just let her know that it was real."

Derek removed his hand from her shoulder, "I thought that was what we were trying to do."

She ignored his last statement and glared at Mrs. Hackle, "I don't think you could feel the annoyance when I thought my family was tricking me into thinking Derek didn't exist. Then you didn't feel the worry when I found out everything had changed. And you didn't feel the sadness when I found out one of my closest friends had died because of this alternate reality. You didn't feel how much joy I had inside of me when I finally realized that I loved Derek. Or when Derek told me how he really felt about me. You didn't feel the shock when I was told that in this alternate reality I three-timed some guys. You didn't feel the punches and the kicks that were thrown at me. And you didn't see the knife that signaled the death of my boyfriend." Tears were flowing down her face now, "You didn't see the blood come rushing out of his chest. You didn't hear his breaths become irregular. You didn't see the look in his eyes as he died. You didn't feel the emptiness inside when I realized he was gone forever, and that I was alone in the strange new reality!" She was breathing hard, and Derek, although he had talked to her about the event, had never heard her talk about his death. He was shocked that she had kept all that in for so long. She stood up, and took Derek's hand in hers, "If it was just a dream, why would Derek and I continue to be in love. When you have a dream and you fall in love with someone in that dream, you don't go up to them and say, hey I was in love with you in my dream last night, so I think I should still be in love with you. It doesn't work like that. Derek and I both know that it really happened, and we both know that we belong together. You saying that it didn't happen will only make us argue harder. Because by you saying it didn't really happen, you're saying that Derek never really told me how he felt about me, and I never told him how I felt about him. We would never have started dating, and we wouldn't be in love right now. By you saying this didn't happen, you're saying that all we went through was nothing. I'm going to have to go through weeks of physical therapy to get my arm to move again!" Derek looked down at her right arm that was in a full length cast, because every bone in it had been broken, "And Derek may be permanently blind in one eye! You're saying that through all of that, the one thing that kept us happy isn't true. So, yeah, we're going to fight you on it. Every step of the way."

Derek looked down at her, with only half of his vision being perfect, he could only see her out of one eye, "I love you." He whispered, leaning down next to her ear.

She didn't respond, but squeezed his hand gently.

Mrs. Hackle looked taken aback. Obviously she had never had one of her patients talk to her like that, "Well, Miss McDonald, I did not mean to anger you. And I certainly did not mean to take away your happiness. I am sorry. If you two would rather not continue the appointments, I understand." She smiled gently at them.

Derek held Casey closer to him, enveloping her in his arms, but being careful of her arm. She looked up at him, and looked into his left eye that was almost glazed over all the way. The doctors were trying to hurry and help him before the blindness spread to his entire retina, but they weren't sure if he would ever be able to see out of his left eye completely. She kissed his cheek and then laid her head on his chest, facing Mrs. Hackle, "Thank you."

And with that, Derek took Casey's left hand in his right one, and they walked hand in hand out of the office, hopefully never to return. Casey smiled up at Derek and he grinned down at her.

"You were amazing back there, Case."

"I was just telling the truth. I know what happened was real, and people saying that it wasn't truly ticks me off, because if it didn't happen, then I never would have gotten to be your girlfriend."

"Believe me; I'm grateful for that two." He kissed the top of her head, and then wrapped his arm around her waist. She leaned into him as they walked and they were both completely happy.

For the time being.