Even though I didn't say it before I dont own Life with Derek. Well I got more revieiws then I expected so I have decided to make this a 3 part story. I don't know if the 3rd will be this long but I will have it up soon.
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Casey had woken up early the next morning, actually she had never fallen asleep. She couldn't get over the fact that her mother really didn't know her at all. Really, come on, her andDerek. Derek, the center of all evil, the womanizing playboy that never stayed with the same girl twice, DEREK, the pig of a step-brother that lives to make her miserable! The nerve of them! She sighed , she felt some what relieved that she figured out she didn't have feelings for Derek but, she also felt foolish that she stayed up all night worrying about nothing.
She walked out of her room and down the hall towards the bathroom, when she heard the shower running. She could smell Sunday breakfast cooking in the kitchen and, since making breakfast with Nora had become an unofficial weekly tradition she realized that it wasn't Edwin or Lizzie.
'What is he doing up so early on a Sunday?' she raised her fist to the door when she realized that pounding mercilessly on the door would likely erupt into a fight.
"The fighting might be the result of sexual tension.." she shuddered at the memory of last night and the conversation that probably scared her for life. She surely didn't want to give Nora and George any more reasons for crazy ideas. She turned around and walked back into her room.
Derek turned off the water and grabbed his towel and wrapped it around his waist. He leaned up against the sink and looked at the mirror which was all foggy from the steam of the hot water. He raised his hand to the mirror and stared into his reflection's eyes, he remembered hearing somewhere that the eyes were the windows to a person's soul but, no matter how long he stared he couldn't look through his own eyes. He shook his head , sending droplets of water flying at the walls and mirror. Why was he giving this so much thought? It was his father and Nora's opinion and, they were not that great at knowing their kids, after all they did do so bad on that test child services should have been called. Although they had been trying to pay more attention to their children after they completely failed the test. He ran his fingers through his wet hair before walking out of the bathroom and into his room.
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Casey had since gotten dressed and was waiting for Derek to get out of the bathroom or someone to call her downstairs for breakfast, whichever came first. She heard the 'click' of Derek's bedroom door and stood up from her position on her bed. She walked into the bathroom that felt like a sauna due to the steam., and picked up her brush. She looked at the mirror and saw that it was entirely fogged besides the one swipe, she could clearly see where his fingers had gently trailed across the glass…
"Casey! Derek!" she jumped as the voice of her mother calling her for breakfast jolted her from a daze she didn't know she had fallen into. She suddenly realized that her arm was outstretched almost touching the mirror and quickly withdrew her hand and ran down the stairs.
Derek was the last to sit down at the table and was therefore seated directly across from the last person he wanted to make any type of humanly contact with…Casey.
"Me and Edwin made almost the entire breakfast by ourselves" Lizzie said to no one in particular as she set down a pan of scrambled eggs in the middle of the table.
"Great" replied Derek and Casey both in monotone. Their eyes went wide but they each made it a point to not look at each other.
"Hey! I made the toast!" yelled Marti who wanted praise for her contribution to breakfast.
Derek took a bite of the dry toast and told her that it was 'the best toast ever'. Casey smiled at the six year old and started to put food on her plate.
Breakfast was relatively normal with the usual conversation of plans for the week and upcoming events being repeated from last nights dinner by Lizzie and Edwin so Nora or George wouldn't forget .
"Edwin how much are you going to eat?" exclaimed Lizzie as she watched her step-brother load his plate with his third helping of eggs.
"What I'm a growing boy I need to eat!" Edwin replied Matter-of-factly before shoveling in a spoonful of eggs.
Casey suddenly stopped chewing her bacon and Derek started to choke on his still very dry toast. Both had the same sentence running through their heads.
"Derek, we understand that you're a growing teenage boy and that you might feel that you have needs…" George had said that last night before going into the whole I was a once a wild teenager your age speech.
"Derek, man are you ok?" asked Edwin who was staring at his brother strangely. Derek took a sip of his orange juice and nodded yes to Edwin while Casey swallowed and took another bite of bacon.
"Well I was just saying because it looks like your inhaling your breakfast." said Lizzie as she was getting back to the conversation with Edwin who's plate was half empty once again.
"Well I bet you couldn't eat this much." said Edwin almost trying to provoke Lizzie into a competition, he was seriously spending to much time watching his brother.
"I could eat as much as you if I wanted to but, I don't need to prove anything." Lizzie said and Edwin started to shrug his shoulders but didn't because it was Casey who was now choking and Derek who was bug eyed.
"Casey I know that there's a lot of pressure for girls your age to …do certain …activities , but you don't have to prove yourself by doing them." Nora had said that last night when she started to say those 'activities' were better shared with the one you love.
At this point during breakfast both had lost their appetites and quickly excused themselves from the table. Nora and George had been trying to pay more attention to all of the children but they were both too preoccupied trying convince Marti that it was not a good idea to build houses out of the remaining slices of toast to notice their departure.
As they both sprinted up the stairs their shoulders collided.
"Ow, Casey what are you a football player?" Derek said as he rubbed his shoulder and his side which had landed violently against the banister .
"You know what…" she started loudly but trailed off " ..Um.. actually never mind" she mumbled avoiding Derek's very confused eyes on her and ran into her room.
Derek stood on the stairs baffled about Casey's reaction. Was it possible that she was as confused as he was about ever thing that had happened?
He groaned and walked up the remaining stairs it wasn't what 'had happened' it was what was 'still happening'.
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Derek spent the rest of his Sunday afternoon locked in his bedroom. How could things ever be the same? How could he look at Casey now and still convince himself that she was supposed to be his sister?
"George and I realized that you two are probably too old to think of each other as siblings." Nora had said that herself, so now what was he supposed to tell himself?
His excuse of 'she's related to me' was gone. The fact was that they shared nothing but a roof, they had different mothers, fathers, lifestyles and pasts. They had grown up as complete strangers just another face among many others. If they didn't live in same house she would be just another girl at school .
" But she's not just another girl she's different" Derek's eyes flew open and he sat up quickly dragging his hands through his red-brown hair making it appear messier then usual. This was to much he did not like Casey , he had to get some air. He grabbed his jacket and walked down the hallway failing to keep from glancing into the room across the hall.
Casey heard him walk down the hallway and down the stairs. It was kind of ironic that he walked down the stairs when he was running through her mind. She leaned on her desk staring at her computer screen that now had her slideshow screensaver on because she hadn't touched the mouse in ten minutes. There was a picture of Marti at the zoo, holding a stuffed monkey souvenir while pointing at the real monkeys inside the cage. Casey smiled at the memory.
"Look! Look!" shouted Marti in excitement as she bounced up down pointing at the monkeys and then to her stuffed animal.
" Ok, Smarty" said Derek as he tossed the giggling girl onto his shoulders.
"So what do you think his name is?" Casey asked Marti who was fully comfortable sitting on her brother's shoulders and hanging on to his head.
"Umm….Smerek!" The six year old screamed excitedly while she was still captivated by the monkeys.
"What? Why?" asked Derek while grabbing Marti's hands so she wouldn't need his hair for stability.
"Umm.." Marti rested her head on top of her brother's as she thought about this.
"Oh, I see the resemblance too." Casey said suddenly with a smile as she, Marti and Lizzie started laughing hysterically while George, Nora and Edwin tried to stifle their own laughter.
"Ha ha, very funny Casey but I would be careful if I were you cause I might decide to feed you to the alligators." He smirked while pointing to a sign that read 'alligators' with an arrow pointing down the path.
She stuck her tongue out childishly at him in reply, he then chased her down the path in the direction of the alligators with Marti on his shoulders laughing and screaming the whole way.
She got up from her desk. Why was it that no matter what she did her mind would drift to Derek? She was getting frustrated.
'Homework!' she thought , homework would definitely get her mind off of Derek. She pulled out her binder and her math book and read the first question "What is square footage of this figure?" she looked at the figure it looked like a hockey rink with lines and numbers through it. Hockey rink. Hockey. Derek was captain of the school hockey team.
Casey groaned and let her head lay against the book until she was captured by the sleep she hadn't gotten the night before.
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She was awoken by the sound of her alarm clock blaring in her ears. She reached her arm over the side of the bed with her eyes still closed to realize her nightstand wasn't there.
"What?" she mumbled as she rubbed her eyes and looked around. Her mom must have come in and noticed she was sleeping and covered her up with a blanket because she still in he same clothes as yesterday. She then realized she had been sleeping since five o'clock last night and it was now six o'clock Monday morning.
She got dressed and headed down stairs at a quarter to seven .
"Nice to see you up sleepy head." said Nora with a smile as Casey walked into the kitchen.
"Good morning, Mom" Casey greeted as she sat down at the counter where Nora placed pancakes and syrup in front of her.
"Thanks, these are delicious" Casey took a bite of the pancakes that tasted so good since she had slept through dinner last night.
Derek came into the kitchen five minutes later and took the seat right next to Casey.
"g 'morning" he said unenthusiastically as he picked up the maple syrup.
"Good morning" said Casey as she finished the last bite of her pancakes. She looked over at Derek and noticed he was drowning his pancakes.
"So you only like a little pancakes with your syrup" Casey then realized that they hadn't really spoken since Saturday if she didn't count the incident on the stairs and she quickly gestured to his plate that was completely filled with the sticky syrup.
Derek snapped out of his daze to the sound of Casey's voice. He looked at her and she was pointing to his plate. He looked at it and that was a lot of syrup.
"Uh…" He quickly put the cap on the now half empty bottle of syrup.
"Yeah, I like them this way." He flat out lied.
"Ok, well hurry up the bus is gonna be here soon." She said not fully believing him about the pancakes.
"Derek, Casey" Both of their hearts stopped at the sound of Nora's voice and silently prayed that she wasn't going to refresh their memories about Saturday night.
"Get your coats there is a storm coming in today." She said nonchalantly as she washed the dishes.
Derek swallowed the soggy pancake and tried to hide the grimace from the over powering sweet taste of syrup and replied with "ok".
Casey noticed Derek fighting a losing battle with his breakfast and almost laughed but she simply said thanks to her mother and went to get her coat.
Fifteen minutes later Derek and Casey were at the school bus stop. Nora was right it did look like it was going to storm it was windy, the clouds were dark gray, and it was cold, very cold.
Casey shivered "I wonder where Emily is?" she asked as she looked at her own breath in the air.
"I don't know but there's the bus." Derek said without looking at her as the yellow bus pulled up and opened its doors for them.
Derek walked in first and took the seat where he would usually sit alone. Casey went in and hesitated she normally sat with Emily, but she wasn't there. She looked around for a seat and decided she didn't want to sit alone. She sat down next to Derek.
Derek was surprised when he felt someone sit next to him. Who had the nerve to intrude on Derek Venturi's space? He looked at the person and to his surprise it was Casey.
"I'm not moving." she stated when she noticed he was looking at her.
Derek stared out the window " I wasn't going to make you move."
"Oh" she said kind of embarrassed that she jumped to conclusions.
"Why are you sitting here?" He tried to sound normal even though he was very interested almost anxious to hear her answer.
"I didn't want to sit next to a person I didn't know" She answered
"Oh, ok" He said simply.
Why am I disappointed it's just Casey! And she always sits with Emily so what does it matter? Wait…' he broke his train of thought and turned around in his seat. He scanned the length of the bus with his eyes. There it was! The seat Emily and Casey always share and it was empty!
"What are you doing Derek?" asked Casey who was now staring at him like he belonged in an asylum.
He turned back around and was staring out the window with a smirk face.
Casey had chosen to sit with him.
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Derek sat through his math class very confused and for once it wasn't because of the equation. No, it was Casey Mcdonald. He couldn't figure out why he was so satisfied when he realized Casey had a choice to sit with him or not. He wasn't supposed to care, but then why did he? He couldn't like Casey like any other girl in school.
"Casey couldn't even be compared to any other girl in school she is…" realization of where these thought were headed came to him and he jumped in his seat.
"Mr. Venturi just because you don't care about your grade in my class doesn't give you the right to disturb the those who do." said his teacher causing everyone who hadn't seen him jump four inches into the air to look at him.
"Right" Derek replied absently. His mind reeling to figure out why that was the second time he had caught himself thinking about Casey as someone much more then a enemy or a step-sister.
"Mr. Venturi are you listening to me?" said the teacher his voice getting louder
"No" Derek answered automatically annoyance clearly present in his voice.
"No?" the teacher asked losing patience.
"I said no" Derek answered as if he were arguing with Casey since she was still clouding his mind.
By this time everyone in the room was staring intently at what was going on between the teacher and 'The Derek Venturi'.
That was last straw. Derek was instantly jumped a second time as a book was slammed on his desk bringing him back to reality.
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"Oh my god Casey you are not going to believe what I just heard!" Casey turned away from her locker to see her best friend Emily standing next to her looking like she would burst with excitement.
"Uh… what won't I believe?" Casey said with her usual smile but confused because she hadn't expected her to be at school.
"Oh, my mom didn't want me to wait at the stop she said she didn't want me to catch a cold." Emily said quickly having caught on to Casey confusion but needing to tell the latest gossip. Not waiting for Casey to reply she went on with the news.
"I heard from Cindy P. in fourth period that Derek lost his mind and started arguing with Mr. Henderson during third period math and was sent to the detention room for the rest of the day!" she finished and drew in a long breath.
"Why would he do that?" Casey asked genuinely as she closed her locker and started for the cafeteria with Emily.
"Wait, was that concern? Are you Casey Mcdonald actually concerned about Derek?" Emily had stopped Casey and turned her around by her shoulders so they facing each other.
"What? Em, please I am not worried about Derek he's just been acting strange since Saturday" she forced herself to laugh as she started walking again.
"Well if you say so…. Anyway what happened on Saturday?" she asked not noticing the blush that covered her best friends face.
"N-nothing" Casey stuttered as she entered the cafeteria.
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Okay well I tried to keep them in character but it was kind of hard. I probably should have left it as a oneshot but I'm one of those people who has to mess with a good thing. Anyway its kinda late or really early(either way I'm tired) so if you you read this and it sound like another LWD story let me know cause all of my ideas and everything I read are kinda running together right now. Please review I enjoy the feedback from readers and constuctive criticism helps.
