"You okay?" Derek looked up from the game he was playing to check in with his travelling companion – who kept her nose buried in her Kindle. Casey looked fantastic as usual: smart, elegant and so well put together he had seen several guys give her a second glance as they made their way to the airport. They could look of course, but Derek felt rather smug that while they couldn't touch he definitely could…
…for the moment at least.
Despite the euphoria of the past few days Casey had a little dent on her brow.
"I'm fine." She lied in answer to his query.
"You sure?"
Nope, Derek wasn't buying it either. He exited his computer game to give his partner his full attention. Casey, however, continued to read.
"I'm sure."
Her behaviour was definitely not convincing and Derek shuffled in his seat to face her. Anticipating what lay ahead he sighed, tilting his head.
"You're still sore at me, aren't you?"
Apparently the Kindle was far more interesting.
"Why would you think that?" Casey refused to look up. If she did so she knew she would see the face of someone she loved very much – but whose interest had evidently waned.
Derek shrugged. "Since I got up this morning I've had 10 "fines", 19 "Yups" and four "it's okay, Derek". – but otherwise, no meaningful conversation. Now I know this whole "dating" thing is still new to us, but I've known you since we were fifteen, honey and when you start talking to your boyfriend like that, he's on his way out. Usually with a bit of door-slamming, very long phone-calls to Emily and the biggest tub of ice cream you've ever seen."
It was a fairly accurate description of Casey's love-life over the years, Casey had to admit, but it gave neither of them much comfort.
"You're exaggerating." Casey dismissed him.
He pulled a face. "Not by much. Seriously, all this because I wouldn't sleep with you, last night?"
Towards the end of the sentence his voice rose in volume and Casey (and half of the plane) noticed.
Embarrassed, Casey coloured and hissed. "Derek, would you keep your voice down? It's bad enough that I have to listen to this conversation without the rest of the plane hearing it too!"
Ears were visibly starting to twitch down the cabin.
Derek could hear the hurt in her voice. Ironically, hurting her was what he was trying to avoid.
"Princess…"
"I just don't get it." Casey began quietly but her voice too rose through her sentences. "You're falling over yourself to sleep with every other girl on the planet, why the hell won't you sleep with me?!"
Derek's glare became glacial at the mention of other girls. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had sex and despite Casey's assertion, this was a fact that was totally through choice! He didn't dignify her statement with a denial, however, instead concentrating on Casey's double standards – after all she was shouting louder than he was!
It was this kind of argumentative logical that baffled others but had Casey and Derek on the same wavelength.
"Oh….apparently I'm the one shouting?" Derek accused.
Casey ignored him and carried on at the same volume, unintentionally appealing to her fellow passengers.
"Ha! He didn't even deny it! I mean it's not as though the bed was covered with suitcases, I moved them all off. It wasn't late. We weren't tired. Besides it was the last night of our vacation. It was nice, the mood was right, everything was romantic." She protested, ticking off the objections on her fingers.
"Ah! I see." Derek hissed at a much lower volume. "I didn't follow your agenda and it ruined your idea of the perfect romantic break. Tell me, did you have the deed all choreographed too? Only you know what I'm like at dancing. I hope you were planning on doing all the flexible moves like usual, I only got two moves in the sack…you know a sort of back and forth kind of thrust-"
Apparently, Derek could scrape the bottom of the barrel too!
"I don't want to know Derek, and I'm the fool dating you, I can tell you now no one else on this plane wants to know."
Yet again it appeared to have escaped Casey's notice that she was shouting. It hadn't escaped Derek's. He glanced up, his expression more than a little accusatory and half the plane immediately looked the other way.
"I beg to differ." He muttered and then took a deep breath. "Do I at least get to explain?"
It was a reasonable request, but scared of what he might say, Casey declined.
"Maybe. Just not right now. I have a headache."
"Gah!" Derek exclaimed in frustration. "I thought we were supposed to be discussing the future on this flight? I can't even get you to discuss the past!"
Then he began muttering in earnest but his voice started to crescendo. I really do only have myself to blame. I've known the woman for almost fifteen years. I've witnessed every car wreck of a relationship she has attempted. Why did I think I'd be anymore successful at it?!
It came to him somewhere over Ireland.
Because unlike the other guys Casey had dated in the past, he wasn't going anywhere. Casey could blow his whole "I don't want sex at this moment in time" statement into a real thing but it wouldn't make any difference to him. Derek had been through worse with her – and more importantly, without her.
So he would deal with it, just unfortunately not right now. Derek liked making a spectacle of himself, but only when he didn't give a monkey's about the subject at hand.
Times like: running for class president – not an issue, throwing the sickest high school party in the history of John Sparrow Thompson High, piece of cake.
But, a high-profile hockey game, Battle of the Bands or telling his partner how important she was to him….different matter entirely.
"Casey! Derek!"
A wall of sound hit them as soon as they cleared the Arrivals line at the airport. The flight had been pretty full but there were only a handful of people waiting to meet the other passengers from the plane. For Derek and Casey, however, it looked like half of Canada had turned out to meet them! In reality it was only their extended family plus a few hangers on that they sometimes called "friends".
So much had happened since Derek and Casey arrived on the aircraft carrier at Naples that it was easy for the pair to forget the escape from the embassy – and how it nearly didn't happen. Their friends and family hadn't forgotten though. What little information they received had been drip-fed to them over the couple of weeks since they had last seen Derek and Casey. They had had a diet of warzone and death from the international news, knowing the couple they cared about was right in the middle of it. Even when they knew Casey and Derek were safe, these people needed to see the evidence in front of them before their minds were totally at rest. They had not had the benefit of the pleasant stuff from more recent days.
The people waiting for Derek and Casey at the airport today wanted to see them, because for so long they had thought they might not, ever again. The normal "give us 24 hours to sleep off the jet lag" rule did not apply.
Derek hugged his way through most of the group in turn but hesitated when he got to Lucy. His old mentor from the news agency had her arms folded and an eyebrow curled.
"She doesn't look happy." Lucy muttered as he leaned close for a kiss. "What the hell did you do this time?"
Derek shrugged. "Refused to sleep with her." He whispered close to Lucy's ear.
"Sleep, sleep? Or have sex?" Lucy queried.
Derek gave her an all-knowing look and was rewarded with the sight of his old friend choking in surprise. There was no time to enlighten her further, however, since everyone was talking at once.
Eventually, George's voice rose above the rest.
"Hey, guys! Let's take this home. There's food."
The male Venturis were first out of the door and Derek would have been with them – except Lucy grabbed his arm, bent it behind his back and frog-marched him to her car. Nora watched them go in surprise but with a shrug. She had long ago given up understanding her step-son.
"I'm going to drive." Lucy told Derek as he belted himself in. "And you are going to spill."
"He is? What about?" Asked Julia from the back seat. She had left her husband looking after the children for the afternoon to attend her own mentee's home-coming with their former colleague. J
ulia had been less on the ball with regard to Casey's emotional state than Lucy, probably because unlike Lucy, Julia's interest in Casey had always been platonic.
"Derek's upset Casey, and I want to know why he did what he did."
"Why? What did he do?"
Lucy glanced over her right shoulder at her friend. "Derek refused to have sex with her."
Julia's eyes widened. "I don't believe it!"
"No. Neither did I!" Lucy exclaimed.
"Yes well, that is a shock, but let me get this straight, he's been back in Canada just under five minutes and you already know this…how?!"
Derek belted himself into the passenger seat and glanced out of the window while the car's two other occupants discussed him as if he wasn't there. He remembered the previous day with Casey, the warm sun and the frequent kisses. He remembered the dress she was wearing and the smile on her face, and he remembered the twinkle in her eye when she gave him her full attention.
Yes, he had wanted to make love to her. She was gorgeous, intelligent and he loved her. But, there was so much still that was uncertain about their future. He made no apology for the fact that over the years he had grown a conscience. Derek had reached the age where there was no such thing as uncomplicated sex…or at least not if you cared about your partner.
Derek had held back because he knew that if it didn't work with Casey, sex would have complicated things. He wanted to give Casey every chance to walk away from them if it was what she had to do. So until their professional future was sorted, their romantic future couldn't be agreed on, and until their romantic future was agreed on – Derek's drought would continue!
Doing the right thing was one of the hard things he had ever had to do. (No pun intended.)
He was brought back from his day-dreaming when Julia jabbed him in the ribs.
"So…come on then…give!"
Derek took a deep sigh. He recognised he wasn't going to win this.
"Where do you want me to start?"
Lucy shrugged. "At the beginning…?"
"Okay…When I first met Casey McDonald, she had a mouth full of dental wire and a chip the size of Alaska on her shoulder…"
He smirked.
Lucy threw him a filthy look and turned back to the road. "The beginning of this little episode, smart ass!"
By the time the car pulled up at the McDonald-Venturi residence, there wasn't a lot that the two women didn't know about Derek's Italian vacation.
Except, Derek didn't tell them about the way Casey looked as she dozed in the cab on the way to the cliff hotel. He didn't tell them about what it felt like to sleep beside her every night, the way she breathed or how it felt when she was close enough to touch. Derek also didn't tell them that every time he kissed her it felt like the best kiss of his life.
Those thoughts, feelings and a thousand more were private. So while he told them the facts, Derek shared only a fraction of the romance of Sorrento.
Little had changed about his parental home since Derek had left on his mission; even the grass still needed a cut. Since there was only one child left in the house these days, the driveway was not strewn with toys the way it was when Derek was young and the neighbours probably had less trouble with their pool.
The rest of the welcoming party appeared to have made it home before Derek so Lucy was forced to park a good way up the street. Derek grabbed his bags from the trunk of the car and followed his two friends along the sidewalk.
He'd closed half the distance to the house when he saw a sight that made him go cold.
Harry Turner, TV producer (still theoretically Casey's "boss" and Moron-personified) was heading into the house.
Before their disagreement, Derek knew Casey had been unhappy with her role on the TV "news" programme. Even though her professional future with Derek wasn't certain, he was pretty sure that Casey wasn't going to continue with the TV programme.
Since last night's disagreement, however, all bets were off. Casey had a tendency to over-react and Derek really wouldn't put it past her to suddenly perform a 180-degree turnabout and return to broadcasting.
Plus, Harry Turner was carrying a large, expensive bouquet of flowers. Derek pulled a face. The flowers might just be to curry favour with the programme's reluctant star, but Derek had seen the way Harry looked at Casey in the past. He was a man with more than one agenda.
Derek hesitated only briefly and he felt even that might be too long because the world changes in a blink of an eye. He knew how he felt about Casey but clearly Casey didn't get it, and maybe even if she did get it, she might not feel as committed as Derek. If Harry Turner went into the party with a bouquet of flowers for Casey his slick speech and slimy manners might just get somewhere with Derek's girlfriend. And it might be somewhere that was permanent.
"I need the bathroom." Derek announced to Lucy and Julia. "I'll see you guys in there."
Baffled, the girls watched as Derek, still carrying his luggage, sprinted towards the house but instead of going in the front door, disappeared around the back.
Robbie was in the yard.
"Hi Rob. Where's Casey?"
Robbie looked blankly at his older brother. Derek chuckled. Nah! He wouldn't have had a clue at Rob's age either! He walked to the back steps and glanced in the kitchen window. The room was full of people. He suspected the front of the house was also crowded, ruling out the front door. Crowds were not welcome right now, crowds slowed things down. The volume of people would make walking through the house difficult, and the individuals the crowd contained would want him to do unreasonable things, like stop and talk to them. If those same individuals were around when he found Casey, they would probably give her the benefit of their opinion on Derek's behaviour.
Instead, Derek handed Robbie a crisp banknote, instructed the young boy to "put my bags in my room" and set about finding another way into the house.
Casey had told her parents she was going upstairs to "change my clothes" after travelling. The reality was she had a sore head and an aching heart and she needed some space. She closed her door on the celebrations downstairs and thanked her teenage self for insisting on a lock for her door all those years ago. Funny how it would serve the same purpose – that of keeping Derek out of her room – all these years later!
Casey had very few of her belongings in her childhood room. She had an apartment of her own after all. But there was the old familiar wall display, the home-crafted bed head and the same coverlet she had seen for so long. She also had her bags from Italy, so she did have something to change into after all. But for the moment, Casey perched on the corner of the bed and stared into space. Nothing about the last twenty-four hours had gone to plan and she needed to work out why.
Fifteen minutes and a pair of wet eyes later, Casey still hadn't figured it out and realising that there were guests downstairs and if she didn't move then someone would come looking for her, Casey stood up and began to undress.
"So that's what I've been missing all these years when you change in the bathroom." Derek's voice interrupted Casey with her dress half-way over her head. She immediately panicked and her hair caught in her zipper.
"Ow!" She exclaimed.
Derek frowned and stepped towards her. "You okay?"
"Don't come near me!" Casey hissed. "I've got it." She pulled the dress up the rest of the way and, looking rather red in the face from exertion, dumped it on the bed.
"How did you get in here? What do you want, Derek?" She demanded sharply.
Derek didn't bat an eyelid, even though her tone was sharp and not at all welcoming.
"I climbed up the tree and in through your window. And what I want is you." He admitted honestly, crossing the room to her. He paused just inches from her, though he wanted to close that small gap so badly. Casey was half-naked, he was in love with her and the previous night she would have begged him to do exactly that.
This evening, however, Casey avoided his eyes and that made Derek stay where he was for now. "You didn't want me last night." She accused.
Derek wasn't getting into that argument again.
"That's crap." He murmured.
"Casey, look at me." He instructed softly. The tone in his voice made Casey lift her face. Derek smiled tentatively.
"Yes, I did want you. I've always wanted you like that." He grinned. "Maybe not with the brace-thing going on but, pretty much ever since." The seriousness returned to his face.
"Casey, we know each other better than anyone else but there are still ways that you're wrong about me. You think I haven't grown up over the years, but I have. I've grown up a lot. Think about it. Since my hockey injury, since we got fired, every time we nearly died."
There was a long pause.
"You're wrong too." Casey objected with equal softness. "I do think you've grown up. If you hadn't I wouldn't still be with you, as a partner, as a girlfriend, as a friend – any of it."
"But you still think I sleep with anyone and anything." He pointed out.
Casey's shoulders slumped.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." She confessed. "I know it's not true, I just… You wounded my feelings when you rejected me yesterday. You hurt me and I reacted without maturity, like a child, the way I used to when you hurt me as a teenager. I'm not a kid anymore and neither are you, but…"
"…old habits die hard. Yeah. I know." Derek picked up Casey's hand and led her to the bed where they sat down beside each other. Casey was very aware she was only in her underwear.
"I wasn't rejecting you." Derek told her.
"It felt like it." Casey's voice was small and child-like. "I haven't had the…experience you have. I'm in your shadow when it comes to sex."
Derek snorted. "More sex doesn't mean better sex. You've been choosier than I have. In that department, quality is always better than quantity."
This time is was Casey's turn to snort. "Quality?! What quality?! I picked men for their minds – unfortunately that doesn't guarantee they spend the time actually using their cerebral organ to think about their sexual partners during the act!"
There followed an astonished silence after Casey's admission and then they both grinned.
"I don't actually like women with big…erm…" Derek began raising his cupped hands somewhere just north of his pecs and thinking he also should share. Casey's eyebrow rose sharply. He tried to explain. "The bigger they are the less sensitive and erm…look shall we move on?"
Casey let him off the hook and chuckled. "Yes! Please!" Then she frowned. "What about my…erm…assets?"
"Perfect!" Derek laughed and lifted a hand to stroke her face. "Along with the rest of you."
"So what was the issue last night?"
"Well as I tried to explain at the time before you ran from the room and were never seen again,"
Casey blushed and Derek brushed a thumb against her cheek before he went on.
"I take my time with relationships now. In fact, I always have, apart from a small period of time when I first started college. I'm not a "give it up on your first date" kind of guy."
"Even if you've been friends for a very long time?"
"Especially if you've been friends for a very long time. This isn't new." He motioned between them. "But acting on it is." She nodded and Derek continued to explain. "There are things we need to negotiate on as well."
"Like the partnership?"
"Yeah, like the partnership…and also where this is going, what we think the future holds."
"How can we know that?"
"We can have a good idea, based on the evidence…and I mean recent evidence not old prejudice from acts I committed when I was 15!"
Casey was thoughtful. "We have been together a long time." She offered. "And even when we've moved apart we've always come back together."
Derek grinned. "Exactly! You're the longest non-familial relationship I've ever had."
"We're honest with each other. Coldly so at times."
"Honesty is good."
"When we fight, it's passionate." Casey said with pinkness in her cheeks.
Derek leaned close to her ear. "I promise the making up will be too." He kissed her hairline so lightly Casey almost missed it. "And Casey? I'll always think about you during sex."
Casey turned her head and their lips met. Both closed their eyes and concentrated in the moment, before reaching for each other and falling back onto the bed, locked in each other's embrace. Their kisses became deep and passionate and their hands began to roam. Derek's jeans were rough against Casey's naked skin but she liked it. For several moments, they explored and remembered until Derek reached round to remove Casey's bra and they both stopped. Casey leaned her head forward to rest on Derek's.
"I am so turned on right now we'd probably break the bed…but I can't have sex in my mother's home."
Derek chuckled. "Now you know why I always behaved myself under George's roof."
Casey sat up. "I'd say "behaved" was a very loose term. That couch got a lot of action."
"I never went all the way…" Casey didn't believe him. "…not under George's roof at least." Derek added as he sat up.
He reached for Casey again.
"Are we okay again?" He asked. Casey shook her head.
"No. We're better."
She kissed him briefly and stood up.
"I need to get dressed." She informed him, but rather than reaching for clean clothes to put over her underwear, Casey pointedly removed the underwear in front of Derek. Then she walked across to her suitcase and bent over to retrieve a clear set of lingerie.
Derek cursed.
"What?" Casey asked him in mock innocence.
"You'll kill me. You know that?"
Casey smiled. "No, I won't." She said, walking back with the lacy items swinging in her hand. "But the waiting might!"
Derek put his hands on her bare hips and kissed her belly button as low as he dared without guaranteeing they would never appear downstairs at their own party.
"So let's discuss this, sensibly." He suggested, kissing her again. "Clearly we're in this for the long haul."
Casey shifted her weight carefully, trying to brace herself to compensate for the way her legs were trying to turn to jelly. "Hmmm…" She agreed.
Derek pushed the boundaries and kissed her a centimetre lower.
"And we're going to trust each other to have the relationship's best interests at heart?" He kissed her again.
"Yes!" Casey almost gasped. Neither of them was exactly sure what she was agreeing to.
Derek looked up at her. "And professionally? Is there still mileage in our team?"
Casey reached forward and pushed her fingers into Derek's hair.
"So long as we are a team. No unilateral decisions." She told him and as her fingertips brushed the back of her head they pulled his face closer to her body.
"I still want to travel a bit." Derek's breath tickled her skin. "But maybe only once a year – and no warzones."
"That's workable. What about your foundation?"
Derek looked up at Casey again. His view of her face was framed by soft curves of her breasts. He shifted slightly on the bed in an effort to stop the constriction of his jeans.
"That's a decision already set in stone. I've accepted an offer on my apartment and made an offer on a property that would be perfect for a photojournalism school. It's a farmstead with plenty of outbuildings for the studios and so on, plus a rundown shack for me to make my own. The architect is working on the plans for the structures, the business plans have been approved by the bank and are underway. I just need to start planning the curriculum."
Casey giggled as he kissed her belly again. "Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd hear from your lips. Derek Venturi planning a curriculum."
Derek smiled against the smoothness of her skin and moved his lips down yet another centimetre to kiss her again.
"Yeah. I know. Out of my comfort zone there. You want to help me with that?"
Casey closed her eyes. "Help you?"
"You're good at that sort of thing. You could give me some pointers…unless, you'll be too busy working on your own stuff."
"What stuff? I haven't planned that far in advance."
Derek lifted his face from her lower stomach and grinned. "Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd hear from your lips. Casey McDonald didn't plan."
"I guess we've both changed." She was thoughtful. "You know, as I'll be free for a while, I could give you a hand with the planning. Maybe help set out your ideas into a workable format. Produce the slides, develop the hand-outs."
Derek kissed her again. "Not a bad idea. You could help me write the job advert too."
Casey's fingertips tightened in his hair as he kissed a particularly sensitive point about four centimetres south of her belly button.
"What job advert?"
"The one for the English Language tutor. To help my students with the words for their pictures."
Casey pushed Derek's head a short distance away from her abdomen.
"Venturi, Why don't you just ask me? Exciting though this is leading up to the main event, it's taking too long!"
Derek laughed and dropped his hands from her hips. "Okay! We're partners. It's not my foundation, it's our foundation. It's not my journalism school it's our journalism school. It's not my future, it's our future."
"And the little rundown shack?"
"Yours too, if you want it."
Casey sat down on the bed. "How rundown?"
"I guess we'll have to live at your apartment until they get it water-tight."
"Der-ek!"
He was serious for the moment. "I didn't think…I thought you'd given up on us as partners. And even if I thought you were still going to be around I didn't think we'd be a couple. Normally you rarely stay with me when we're in Canada so I thought it would only be me camping out there until I could afford to get the work done. But if this is going to be more I could divert some of the resources from the school to the main house.
"You know, when it has some money spent on it, it's going to be awesome, Case. It's six bedrooms with these enormous reception rooms and…"
"No!" Casey insisted. "You can't divert the money from the school. You need that up and running."
"I'm not having you in a sleeping bag on rotten floorboards with the rain coming in around us."
"No. You can have me in a fantastic master suite on a four-poster bed."
Derek swallowed at the emphasis on the word "have". "A four-poster bed?"
"Or in the marble sunken bath," She winked. "Either way, I don't mind – I'm easy!" Casey grinned. "I'll sell my apartment and we'll use it to fund the house."
Derek said nothing and Casey's face fell.
"Unless you don't want…" She started but Derek interrupted.
"I do want! A lot! It's just it's a big step and for you a big risk…are you sure? It's not "Sensible Casey"."
"No it isn't. But I've taken big risks with you in the past, Derek and every one of them has paid off. It won't be easy, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be worth it. Besides, it'll be convenient. We can commute to work together."
Derek chuckled with her and then his eyes darkened again.
"Getting out of our bed in the morning is going to be difficult." He told her and then before Casey had time to think she found herself on her back on the bed.
Derek loomed over her. Casey ran a hand up his chest finding the buttoned opening of his t-shirt and slipped her hand inside.
"Yes, it will." She confirmed. "I'm a morning sex kind of girl."
"Oh I think we can change that." Derek promised her. "I like my sex every minute of the day."
He planted a soft kiss against her naked breast bone and began a trail of kisses down the centre of her body. Casey felt her legs go numb again, and a tingling down her spine.
"We agreed no sex in this house." She protested weakly as he reached the same sensitive spot from before, the one four centimetres south of her navel.
Derek glanced up. "We agreed we wouldn't go all the way." He paused. "That doesn't mean that one of us at least can't make the trip."
Thirty seconds later Casey gave up protesting.