A/N: Just so everyone knows, Casey's "almost graduating" is different from other peoples, since she's all about grades. "Almost graduating" to her is "damn I still have three months of school" to others. Just thought I'd say that in case anyone got confused from the last chapter to this one.
Chapter 8 And then there were None
Derek's POV
So, school has been a lot better since Casey and I started dating. I was getting better grades and I was nicer to people around school and everyone was really great about me and Casey. Well, that may have been because I told everyone that if they gave us any crap I'd give them bloody noses, but I didn't really care why it was. The point is that Casey and I were great together.
Dad and Nora had noticed the change in me and a change in Casey. I was getting better grades and not getting to nearly as much trouble at school. Casey just seemed more relaxed. She didn't get upset at Marti for leaving her crayons everywhere and she didn't yell when Lizzie chased Ed through the house. And she and I were more likely to go with the family to the movies than not.
I suppose they also noticed that Casey and I were getting along better, though we still had fights. Hey, no matter how in love with a person you are, if they do stuff that drives you crazy and refuse to stop, you get into a fight with them. At any rate, there have been several occasions over the last few months that Case and I have even gone out, like on dates, although we didn't call them that or act like they were a big deal around the house.
But I think Dad was starting to get supsicious. I knew he was happy that I was improving in school, but Casey and I had been together for a little over four months and there were bound to be signs.
My suspiscions were confirmed when I got a knock on my door and, without waiting for a reply, my dad walked into my room and closed the door behind him. "Derek, we need talk."
He took a seat in my desk chair and I sat up on my bed. "I haven't been getting bad grades."
He nodded. "I know, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."
I frowned. "So, I'm in trouble for getting good grades?"
Dad shook his head. "No, Derek, you aren't in trouble. I was wondering what could possibly have motivated you to do better."
I stared at him.
"Derek, were threatened with being unable to play hockey?"
I shook my head.
"Is it because of a girl?"
I nodded slowly.
"If this girl is so important that you would change for her, or because of her, why haven't I met her or at least heard about you going on a date," he paused. "In fact, I haven't heard about you going on a date in several months now."
I nodded again. "I know." I took a deep breath. Casey and I had talked about this. We were planning to tell our parents soon, since we were going to the same college in less that three months, we were going to tell the everything about us before we left so as to explain why we wanted to live together. But I knew that Dad wouldn't leave until I had given him some sort of answer. "Look, Dad, if I could I would tell you all about her and me and us, but I can't. Not right now. I promise you'll know soon, we're just waiting for the right time to break it."
Dad stared at me. "You can tell me how you feel about her."
I looked directly in his eyes so that he would know I was telling the absolute truth. "I love her and I can't see myself with anyone but her."
"Do you want to marry her?"
I nodded. "Not now, but when we're a little older."
Dad smiled at me. I really didn't get that, but it was better than him not believing me. "Just at least give me her name before the wedding."
I laughed and nodded. "You got it."
Dad stood and left my room.
I leaned back against my pillows for a few minutes before standing and going to Casey's room. She was sitting at her desk typing away at something. We were less than two weeks from graduation, so there wasn't any homework. I walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her neck and rested my head on her shoulder. "Whatcha doin', babe?"
"I am writing a story."
"What about?"
"Us, basically."
"Will I get to read it?"
"Eventually." She closed to document she was working on and turned her head towards me. "Why are you in here?"
I kissed her. "We need to talk." I moved to her bed and she turned her chair to look at me. "My dad can tell that I have a secret girlfriend and he wants to know who she is. I think we should tell them before we graduate rather than right before we move. I mean, everyone at school knows and it is bound to come up, and I don't think we can hide it much longer."
She nodded. "Mom is beginning to suspect something, too. She keeps asking me how Sam is with me leaving."
I laughed. "Wrong guy."
She nodded. "Yeah. I just keep telling her that he doesn't care, since we're just friends, but she knows I'm in a relationship with someone and she assumes it's him."
"I wonder if we ought to tell them this week. Maybe Friday, when the whole family is here. That way we can have Liz, Ed and Marti backing us up. What do you think?"
She nodded slowly. "I think you're right."
Casey and I were nervous as we came down the stairs on Friday night. We had told the kids what we had planned the night before and they were ready to help us in any way they could. We had decided that we should just come out and say it when everyone was there, sitting down for the family meeting. We had told the other kids not to get involved unless we really needed their support.
When we got to the table Nora came in from the kitchen and looked at the two of us then at Dad.
"Ok, George, which one do we start with?"
Dad looked between us and shrugged. "Which ever cracks first."
Nora remained standing and Casey and I looked at each other. Had they already found out somehow? Were they trying to get us to confess?
"Look, you two, we know something is going on. Both of you have been acting strangely for the last few months. It isn't that the changes aren't positive, but we would really like to know what is going on. Who are these people in your lives making you want to act differently?"
Ok, so they still had no clue that we were each others' better half. I looked at Casey, but she was looking at the table top in thought. "So, you think the changes are positive?" She looked up at her mother hopefully.
I looked at Nora, too and she nodded. "Yes. We aren't trying to make you give up these people, we just want to know who they are."
Casey looked at me and I nodded. "Ok," I said. "Just, sit down and remember what you just said."
Nora frowned slightly but sat down all the same.
I took a deep breath. Casey would have a really hard time getting it out, so we decided that me and my "tactless ways", as Casey put it, would be better suited for giving out this bit of information. "Um, the person who has been making me want to do better in school and be, you know, just different from how I've always been is the same girl that I told Dad I'm in love with."
Dad and Nora both nodded.
"She and I have been dating for about four months now and before I tell you guys who she is, I need you to remember that you like how I've been acting lately."
They exchanged looks. They were beginning to understand that they might not like what they were about to hear. I looked at the kids, too. Ed and Liz seemed poised to hold off Dad and Nora if Case and I had to make a run for and Marti was smiling at me.
"That girl," I paused and felt Casey's hand on my leg. I grabbed her hand. "Is Casey."
Dad and Nora looked from me to Casey, who nodded, and back to me, before they both stared giggling. "You two are joking, right?" Dad was trying really hard to not laugh, but he really wasn't succeeding.
I looked at Casey in shock. I thought they would start yelling, not think we were joking. "Why would we joke about this?" Casey stared at her mother and both adults stopped laughing and stared at us again. They seemed to be waiting for Casey to go on. She pulled our joined hands up onto the table and looked directly in her mother's eyes. "We have been dating for the last few months. Everyone at school knows already and so do Liz, Ed, and Marti. We're going to college this fall and we want to get an apartment together. Mom, I love Derek and there isn't anything that's going to stop that. You said that you've noticed positive changes in both of us. This is why."
Nora looked at Casey and swallowed. She was pale and Dad looked like he was about to pass out from shock. Then Nora looked at me. "Derek, do you love Casey?"
I nodded. "More than anything."
She nodded. "All of you go upstairs. George and I need to talk."
We all stood up quietly and started for the stairs while Dad and Nora started for the kitchen. We all stopped when we heard Marti speak. "Smerek is happier now. Smerek has never been this happy before and I like him even more now. And Casey is a lot happier too. I like Smerek and Casey dating." She looked up at us from the bottom of the stairs and grinned.
I smiled back at her. It was just like my little sister to say exactly what she thought. And she was so innocent that no one could help but think smile at whatever she said. "C'mon, Smarti," I told her. "Upstairs."
When we got to the top of the stairs I started talking. "Well, that could have been a lot worse." I opened my door and started to pull Casey in with me, but she hung back. "What is it?"
The kids stopped, but thought better of watching us and retreated to their rooms.
"I don't know if it is a good idea for us to be in the room alone."
I frowned at her. "Why?"
"Well, Mom and George are going to want to talk to us. I'm not sure they would be comfortable finding us in the same room, alone, with a closed door."
I shook my head and stepped towards her. "Case, they already know we're together, how much weirder can things get for them?"
"But they'll think we were..."
I cut her off there. "Babe, if they don't understand that by us dating we have also been making out, then they are in complete denial that we have even been dating. Please, I don't want to just sit in my room and wait for them to come up and yell at us." I slipped my arms around her waist and leaned my forhead on hers.
"Ok." It was barely a whisper, but I heard her loud and clear.
We went in my room and I took a sear on my bed, while she went to the other side of the room to my desk chair. "It also could have gone better."
I looked at her confused. "Huh?"
She rolled her eyes. "I guess being in love with me can't change how stupid you can be." I frowned at her, but she laughed and continued. "You said a minute ago that that could have gone worse, but it could have gone better, also."
"Oh, yeah, I guess that's true. But in all honesty, we really don't know how things have gone, yet. I mean, we don't know that they're going to be pissed at us or disgusted by us. They're faces were ones of shock. Maybe they'll be completely supportive, right?"
Casey smiled at me and nodded.
"Aha, there is my Casey."
She laughed at me again. "Did you think she had gone some where?"
I grabbed her hand and pulled her to sit on the bed next to me. "Well, I couldn't find her under that worried thing you had going."
She wrapped her arms around my chest and leaned her head on my shoulder.
"So, can we make out now?"
She huffed. "You can't let a sweet moment be just that, can you?"
"Nope." Hey, I can be honest.
She sighed and looked at me, right before planting her lips on mine. It didn't take very long for us to be laying down on my bed with my tongue in her mouth holding each other so close we would need out molecules to join to be any closer.
Then we heard a throat being cleared. We stopped kissing and looked up to see Dad and Nora standing in the doorway and before I could process what had happened I was on the floor and Casey was sitting up on my bed straightening her clothes.
I frowned up at her. "Hey, my bed, you don't get to push me off."
She glared down at me. "You weren't on your bed, you were on me." She blushed, realizing just how bold a statement that was in front of her mother and stepfather.
I grinned and got up from the floor and took a seat next to her. We both looked up at the adults who were actually smiling slightly as they watched us. "So, are we vile beings that you never want to see again, or do we have chance of being accepted?"
I felt Casey stiffen next to me. Apparently she had never thought that they wouldn't want to see us again, but that was worst case scenario, so I really didn't think that, either.
Nora shook her head and sat in my desk chair while Dad leaned against my desk. "We don't think you're vile, son. It was just shocking to find out that you two are dating. We thought you still couldn't stand each other." He smiled. "And it looks like we aren't going to have fightless house anyway."
Nora chuckled. "Look, guys, this is going to take George and I a little getting used to, but we can't honestly say that we didn't see it coming. In the back of my mind I always knew that you two were absolutely perfect for each other, I had just kind of hoped, out of a desire to keep things from being even a bit weird, that you two would end up just friends, but I can see that didn't happen."
Casey smiled sheepishly and looked at her hands, one of which I had managed to entwine my fingers in.
I continued to look at my dad. "So, you guys aren't going try to keep us apart?"
Dad laughed. "Would we be able to succeed?"
"No."
"Exactly. All that would do is make everyone unhappy. We just have a couple of requests. One is that you don't have sex while you're here."
Casey coughed and even I blushed.
"The second is that if you guys break up you have to promise that you will still be civil, since you will still share a family."
I looked up at him. "You are just saying that to cover the bases, right? You guys don't expect us to break up."
Dad's eyes softened when he looked at me. "No, Derek, we don't expect it."
Nora smiled and stood. "We'll leave you two alone. But remember request number one."
They both left and I looked at Casey. She was pale. "Case, what's wrong?" I turned her chin so she would look at me.
"Derek..."
I was getting really worried now. "Baby, what is it?" I kissed her forehead. "What's wrong?"
She shook her head and started crying and I could tell that some of the color was coming back to her cheeks. "Nothing's wrong. I just really didn't think things would go as well as they did."
I smiled at her. "Well, they did." I kissed her. "They went amazingly well and I'm never going to let you go." I kissed her again and this time we stayed that way. We were again laying on my bed and she and I had only one thing on our minds. We were free. We didn't have to hide anything from anyone. Were free to be together. We slept in my bed that night. No, we didn't have sex, neither of us had any intention of ruining the trust Dad and Nora had extended. But neither of us were really ready for that step, either.
When we woke up the next morning it was to three faces and a tray of breakfast foods. A small celebration. All five of us ate in my room that morning, laughing and talking. Casey looked as happy as I had ever seen her and I couldn't help thinking that not only was everything going to be ok, but everything was going to be perfect. Casey was something new for me, but that was only because she was my angle.
A/N: Ok, so there you are, the parents know. Now, should I write another chapter? leave the story here? or write a sequal? Which idea do you guys like best? I can do any of them, except maybe leave it where it is, though I could for a while. Let my know when you hit the review button. Pretty review button!