Author's Note Lots of thought and dialogue in this chap. Not much to the plot, besides leading up to the next chap. which I promise more Dasey love in. . Hope you enjoy this chap. anyways. And as always REVIEW!

Disclaimer I cried this morning. I had the best dream ever. I owned Life with Derek for the briefest moment, and for once in my life...I was complete.

Derek went downstairs and sat on the couch. His dad was in the chair and, for once, he didn't feel like arguing him out of the chair, no matter how good he was at it. He did, however, ask for the remote.

"Dad, your taste it television is horrible. Why don't you pass the remote to someone who, let's say, has brilliant tastes." George raised his eyebrows up at Derek.

"No, the news is important stuff. If you would get out in the world more often maybe you would find an interest in it."

"Aww come on Dad. It comes on five times a day." Derek said exaggeratedly. George looked at him long and hard.

"Fine Derek." George got up and left the room. Derek took advantage of the empty space in the chair and jumped into it. He placed a hand behind his head and let out a sigh of comfort. Flipping through the channels he saw an advertisement for the news. It was so silly but it mentioned a dance competition. The competition was going to be held over the summer, which was about two weeks away. He instantly thought of Casey. She should get in this if she hasn't already seen it. Derek was about to head upstairs to tell her about it, but he remembered that she needed to be alone, so he stayed.

He flipped it to a high school hockey game. It was two of his schools rivals against each other. In the back of his mind he hoped that they would tie with no way to break the tie, but that was impossible. The captain did have a nice slap shot though.

Edwin came down the stairs with Lizzie. When Edwin saw Derek he turned to Lizzie and whispered something. She headed upstairs and Edwin walked casually over and sat closest to him on the couch.

"What'cha watchin' big bro?"

"Hockey game." Derek said passively.

"I was hoping you could give me girl advice."

"I thought we already tried this."

"Well, I was talking to the girl and she talked to her sister. Do you want to know what the sister said?" Derek suddenly got interested and turned to face him.

"Yeah, sure."

"The girl went to her sister and told her that she was with a guy that she couldn't be with. Her sister ended up prying 'the why' out of her." Derek leaned closer expecting Edwin to tell him 'the why'. "I'm not telling you okay! Anyways…She told my girl that if we really cared about each other that it should be okay, but it was something that we would probably have to fight for because it would go against a lot of people's morals."

"Are you gay?" Derek interjected in a harsh, biting voice.

"No dude, I love the ladies." Upon hearing a loud giggle, Derek turned to face the top of the stairs. Derek saw Lizzie and she bolted to her room and shut the door.

"What was that about?"

"I have no clue." Edwin shrugged it off, but Derek was beginning to get suspicious. Are Edwin and Lizzie…together?

"Anyways…" Derek said, making a gesture for him to proceed.

"Right…Anyways, the girl thinks that we should go for it and forget how everyone is going to react."

"Reckless. I like it." Derek smirked.

"I don't know how much you'll like it if you knew who I was with."

"Well, forget about how I'm going to react and tell me." He said eagerly.

"Later!" Edwin jumped over the couch and ran up the stairs. Derek had attempted to grab him by the sleeve but didn't succeed. He cursed underneath his breath and continued with the game.

Marti and Nora came out from the kitchen; Nora sat Marti on the couch.

"Make sure she doesn't get anything on her outfit." Derek looked at Nora and nodded his head. Nora left the room and Marti got up and started to walk away. He got up and put her in his lap.

"Where ya going Smarti?"

"Upstairs to play cause this is boring!" Marti crossed her arms. He smirked and handed her the controller, then looped his arms around her belly.

"Well why don't you pick something that's not boring."

"Okay! Thank you Smerek!" She turned slightly and reached up to kiss his cheek. Her rubbed her hair, messing it up. Too cute.

Marti turned it to some kid show and Derek leaned back, closing his eyes. He was trying to think of what to do. Casey was so frustrating, and he wondered if it was even worth the try. Part of him loved the idea of having someone like Casey- she was everything that he wasn't, but in a good way. She wasn't like the many girls he had already been with. Casey was definately unique, and would always be a challenge...But another part of him wanted nothing to do with her--She was almost petty, and shallow in her own way. Not that he wasn't a bit shallow, but she couldnt' say that she wasn't a tad shallow either. If they would always fight and not have calm moments then it would just make him feel restless and trapped. He definately didn't want to be trapped.

But anything that was Casey, was something that he loved to hate, and hated to love. Such a brooding twisted emotion, and yet it was something he enjoyed feeling; Only when it came to Casey though.

Marti was clapping her hands excitedly as an elephant jumped over a lake, landing on a rainbow. Derek chuckled at it's silliness. He reminisced when things like that amused him. It was something he was embaressed to talk about, just like old nicknames and and jokes, neither of them being funny anymore. Well, at least not in the same way.

An hour passed and Derek's leg was beginning to fall asleep. He heard Casey's voice atop the stairs and strained to hear what she was talking about, but he didn't catch anything. She walked down the stairs with a panicked look on her face. Nora walked down the stairs after her when Casey suddenly turned toward her.

"Mom, why are you letting me do this? I'm going to fall flat on my face. Andrew will lift me up and my skirt will fall won't it." Derek looked over, Casey's face looked worried. He chuckled, smirked, which got him an icy glare from her.

After Nora convinced Casey that it wasn't a mistake and that she would be fine, everyone got into the van and headed off to the theater where the show was going to be held. Derek acted like he dreaded going and pretended to beg and plead not to go, and luckily for him, they didn't give in.