Hello, hello, hello! Sorry the update took a while, I was too busy to write up the next chapter as well as finding the perfect song to write a song fic. Eh, but that's still in the process of being written in my head first. x Anyway, this next chapter is longer than the others, but I hope you'll enjoy it.

Disclaimer: We all know that I do not own any of these characters from Life with Derek.


When Casey woke up Saturday morning, she was in a very grumpy mood. Her right hand hurt to the extreme and her eyes were still puffy from crying the previous day. Even though Derek said he had a solution the whole situation, she couldn't help but cry herself to sleep. It was too overwhelming for her to handle and usually sleeping made it go away.

Unfortunately, Casey was still in a very bad mood.

Casey walked over sleepily to the bathroom and stood in front of the door. When she attempted to open it, it was locked. She groaned and knocked on the door loudly and violently.

"Someone's in here!" yelled Lizzie, her voice muffled by the noise of the shower.

Casey groaned again and sat on the floor next to the door, pulling her knees up to her chest. She was annoyed that she had overslept again because Casey was usually one of the first people awake. She figured that it had to be the whole situation that was putting her in such a horrible mood.

"Psst! Case!" hissed Derek, poking his head out of his door.

Casey looked at him and replied in a loud voice, "What?"

"Thanks for killing my attempt at being quiet."

"No problem. What do you want?"

Derek motioned for her to come over, "Come here."

She rolled her eyes and got herself up, walking slowly to his room with her arms crossed across her chest. It gave off the impression that him making her walk to his room was very aggravating and a burden.

"And why am I here again?" Casey asked him, placing her hands on her hips.

Derek sat his computer and put his hands behind his head, "You're here because I told you to."

"I'm leaving," she said simply, not wanting to be someone's slave and began walking out of the door.

"I was kidding! Learn how to take a joke, Case."

Casey turned around and walked to where his seat was, still looking very annoyed, "Okay, then what's the real reason why I'm here?"

"We're starting today."

"What?"

"On the plan," Derek said, moving his hand as if trying to help her remember.

"No, I know that. But you said 'we'."

Derek laughed, "You think you can do this on your own?"

"Well, I didn't--"

"Exactly. I'll let you do 90 percent of it and I'll be here for tips and light criticism."

"You? Light criticism? Don't make me laugh," she said and rolled her eyes.
"Casey, look. You need me and don't even deny it."

She let out an exaggerated sigh, "Fine, whatever."

"You want to get this done right? You've got two weeks to get him wanting you back and two weeks to find a new prom date."

"Fine," Casey repeated stubbornly.

Derek smirked, "Good. I give you permission to go get ready now."

"DEREK!"

"It's a joke!"

---

About an hour later, Casey sat on the couch in a better mood after a nice hot shower and a bit of chocolate despite the fact that her hand was bugging her to death. Derek had told her that they were going somewhere, but he wouldn't tell her where. So she sat there, flipping through the channel, feeling very unproductive and annoyed.

"Derek!" she yelled, wondering where the heck her stepbrother was.

Nora walked into the living room, "Did he put something on the couch again? Are you hurt?"

Casey stared at her mom with a confused expression, "Uh, no, mom. I was just waiting for him to get his butt downstairs."

"You guys are going somewhere?" Nora inquired, looking as if she wanted the details.

"Sort of."

Derek walked downstairs, grabbing his jacket and opening the front door, "Case, let's jet. Bye, Nora."

Casey stood up, put on her jacket and kissed her mom on the cheek, "Bye, mom."

"Drive safely!" Nora shouted after Casey closed the front door.

It was an odd sight for Nora to see Casey and Derek leaving the house in a civilized manner. Nice, but odd.

---

Derek was, of course, driving safely. Alright, so his driving was a bit too fast for Casey's liking, but at least he never put them in a situation where the outcome was a car accident.

Once he stopped at a stoplight, Derek turned to Casey and said, "Okay, Case. There's not that much that we would improve, but since we want him begging on his knees, or better yet all fours, there's a couple stuff that we'll work on."

Casey looked at him, not exactly sure if she should take that as a compliment or not, "What exactly do you have in mind?"

"Style, attitude, body language, verbal language, whatever language," Derek listed, a smirk coming across his face.

"You want me to be a slut?" Casey assumed in shock.

"No, no, no. If we wanted that, we'd take out your Babe Raider costume."

Casey punched his arm with her hand that had band-aids on her knuckles and winced after she did so.

"Your hand still hurts?" he asked, nodding towards her fist.

"No, not really," she lied, staring out her window as he continued driving.

Derek smirked and laughed again, "Case, I know that everyone wants to be just like me, but next time don't try too hard because I'm one of a kind, baby," he said and popped the collar of his jacket.

"Don't flatter yourself," Casey said with a roll of her eyes, "Where are we going?"

He nodded his head, "Somewhere and we're almost there."

Soon afterwards, Derek made a right turn which gave Casey the perfect view of the mall downtown. Casey groaned and shook her head, not knowing why in the world Derek chose this mall of all places. She figured it was because "no one went to this mall" and therefore, no one would see them shopping. She wasn't even exactly sure if she was supposed to tell him that this was the mall she saw Sam and Emily at.

"You're kidding me, right? We aren't going into that mall, are we?" Casey said, staring at him.

Derek glanced at her and drove into the parking lot, "It sure does look like we are, doesn't it?"

"Derek! This is the mall where I saw them."

He continued to drive up and down the aisles for parking and thought for a few seconds, "Well, then this is the perfect place where we'll cook up our revenge."

"You mean, 'your'."

"Your revenge. Didn't I say that?"

"No, you said 'our revenge'," Casey retorted, giving him a weird look.

Derek finally parked and got out of the car, going straight to his trunk, "No, I didn't."

Derek mentally kicked himself for his continuous slips of saying 'us', 'we', and 'our' when referring to the plan for Sammy. Well, he did consider this partly his doing as well since Sam did date his stepsister and then broke her heart. It was only common courtesy to Casey, right? Right. But when were the words 'common courtesy' and 'Casey' ever next to each other in his vocabulary? Probably never, but that was beyond Derek's point. The point was that he was just as mad at Sam as Casey was and wouldn't let Casey's little comments interfere with his perfect plan…Even if the whole plan revolved around her.

"What are you getting?" Casey asked Derek and went to the back of the car as well.

Derek pulled out her black and olive green dress, "This. We're returning it. I mean, you're returning it."

"Where did you get this?"

"You left in on your chair and I got it when you were in the shower," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Casey grabbed it grudgingly forgetting that she desperately wanted to return it anyway, "You are such a jerk."

"I thought I was such a guy," Derek said and began walking towards the actual mall itself.

"You are! You're both. You're a guy who's a jerk. And a big one at that."

"A big … what? Big guy? Big jerk? What goes on in that head of yours?" Derek asked and poked her temple to annoy her.

Her reaction was good enough for him as she stomped her foot loudly and shoved him, "Don't touch me!"

---

After they returned the black and olive green dress, Derek and Casey went to six more stores to buy a new one. Unfortunately, buying dresses was a lot harder than Derek had expected and definitely more time consuming than he wanted it to be. She had tried on practically every color of the rainbow, from pastel pink to gray, dark green to brown, and even teal to orange. However, each of these dresses didn't compliment Casey the way he wanted it to. Sure, most of them looked snazzy on her, but Derek wanted her to have the perfect dress … but, you know, only because Sam needed to see her at her best on prom night.

Once they hit their last store, despite the fact that Derek said the fourth store would be their last, Casey looked around and separated from Derek. He didn't mind it all that much because it gave him the chance to sit down and breathe. Derek sat down in one of the chairs by the dressing rooms, waiting for Casey to find a couple of dresses to try on. He felt completely relaxed before he was suddenly snatched by Casey and was walking quickly to hide with her behind a rack of dresses without knowing why.

"What are we doing?" Derek asked, shooting her a weird glance before getting up to go back to his chair, "I'm going back to my chair."

Casey pulled his arm, pulling him back down with it, "No, you can't."

"And why is that?"

"Because Emily is here," she hissed, still holding his arm but her grip was slowly tightening from nervousness.

"Well, she's got some nerve to come back to this mall after what happened," Derek said with a laugh.

"Hey, I'm here, too," Casey said, slightly pouting and then gasped, moving away quickly.

"That's different," he said before realizing that Casey wasn't beside him.

Derek got up and looked around the store, not seeing her anywhere. He groaned and turned around to start looking some more but ended up right in front of Emily.

Emily stared at Derek with some odd expression and finally mustered up enough courage to say something, "Hey, Derek. Were you just talking to yourself?"

Derek fixed his jacket and stared at her, "You've got a problem with it?"

"Um, of course not. What are you doing here anyway?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," he smirked.

Embarrassed, Emily shook her head, "Oh, I wasn't trying to be nosy or anything."

"I'm here to find a dress for … my date to prom," he said, searching through the rack of dresses before pulling out a gorgeous dark red one.

"Who are you going with?" she asked with interest because she really should be interested. He was Derek Venturi, after all.

Derek had a smug smile across his face and replied, "Some chick from a different school. She's hot. Actually she went to middle school with Sam and me. I bet he'll be surprised to see her, don't you?"

"Oh. Um, yeah. Well, I better be off," Emily said awkwardly and left.

Once Emily was out of the store, Derek kept looking around for Casey. He was still holding out the dress he picked out for his non-existent prom date and was suddenly shoved into a rack of dresses.

"What the!" Derek yelled and stared at Casey with wide eyes, "What was that for?"

"For not telling me you had a date to prom!" She said, almost as loud, but didn't want to cause a scene.

Derek laughed hard and shook his head, "You can't honestly be serious. That was just some lie I told her. I'm going stag so I can dance with whoever I want."

"Oh whatever," Casey rolled her eyes and took the dress out of his hands, "What's this?"

"A dress. Try it on."

She gave him a 'are you kidding?' look and replied, "You've got to be joking right? It's too... And it shows … No way!"

Derek's turn to roll his eyes finally came as he pushed her over to the dressing room, "Go. You want him jealous, right?"

"Well, yeah … But--"

"Then try it on!" He pushed her one more time and sat back down in his chair.

Derek sat there, tapping his fingers together mischievously as he waited for Casey to change. Boy was she taking forever. He groaned impatiently and slouched in his chair, his mind to wrapped around his plan to notice the handful of girls staring at him and whispering. It wasn't until then that Casey opened the door slowly, side stepping out of the room so that he could see her.

The dark red dress was gorgeous on its own, but on Casey, it was absolutely stunning. The dress had black outlines and tied behind her neck in a way that showed her neck and back the most. It honestly fit every curve and complimented her figure in a way that Derek couldn't explain. Who knew a simple dress create such a reaction in someone. Even in Derek.

It was almost funny because he just sat there with his eyes running over her body in amazement while she stood there in nervousness.

"Derek?" Casey asked him, worried that it wasn't a great dress considering he was giving her a weird look.

Derek's eyes snapped back up to hers and he nodded his head slowly, "Well, it's…nice."

Hope this will keep you content until my next update. I love you all!
- Lina.