A/N: Okay, so I just wanted to let you know, that last chapter is what's happening in REALITY. I don't think I 'll do many chapters about that, but whenever it switches to talk about Derek and Casey in their comas, just know that it is not going along with whatever Casey and Derek just did in the last chapter. Hope that's not too confusing! If it is, let me know, and I will try to explain better.

R&R, please!

-Jaclyn :)

Chapter Five: Isn't Something Missing?

Casey had had fun at the party. She had promised herself she would. Emily had hung out with Eric all night, but Casey had seen her every now and then, and the three would dance together, and talk. She was also hit on by several guys, but only allowed one to dance with her. Once she was home she didn't talk to her family, but headed straight to Liz- her room, and went to sleep, looking forward to waking up to a normal Saturday, with everything being right again. She smiled and settled down for a good nights' sleep.

Unfortunately, her dreams would not allow her to rest peacefully. The first time she fell asleep her dreams were littered with Sam and Derek popping it at random time and blaming her for their non-existence. She awoke panting and sweating and feeling very nervous. It took her a while, but she finally fell asleep again. But then, she saw Kendra and Ralph and they were blaming her for all the crap that had happened in their life. She then woke up breathing heavy. She sighed and sat up, leaning her head back on the headboard. She took a deep breath and reminded herself, that her wish would work overnight, and that everything would be back to how it was supposed to be.

She then lay back down, and cuddled into her blankets and pillows. She closed her eyes and tried to relax once more. After hours of tossing and turning, she finally fell into a dreamless sleep. She slept way past her family, and when she woke up, the clock read half past ten. She got out of bed, wondering why it was so quiet in the house. She pulled her tank top down so it covered most of her stomach, and made sure the legs of her short shorts weren't riding up too much. Then she left her room to search for her family. No one was upstairs, and she had checked every room. She then hurried down the stairs and saw no one in the living room or at the table. And as she walked toward the kitchen she saw no one in there either. She furrowed her forehead and went to the fridge to get a glass of orange juice.

As she was pouring the juice into her cup, she saw a piece of paper on the island. She set the jug and the cup down and grabbed it. It was from her mom. It said that the family went out to breakfast, and that they didn't want to wake her. It also said they would be back around noon, because they were also going to see the new movie about a talking fish and a whale… or something like that. Casey set the note down, and then realized something. Derek wouldn't have gone with them. And he hadn't been upstairs.

She hadn't woken up in her old room. She had woken up in the same room she went to sleep in. She had just been too tired to notice. She ran over to the pictures and looked at the family photo. She saw her and Edwin in the middle and let out a loud cry. She couldn't believe it. She thought sleeping off the wish would make it better. But it hadn't, she was still in her new twisted reality that she wished upon herself. She dragged herself over to the couch and flopped over the arm and onto the cushions. There was a pillow underneath her, so she grabbed it and put it over her face and screamed into it. It was so frustrating.

She sat up straight. So the wish didn't work. Maybe she needed to do something else. Maybe she needed to be so happy with Derek and wish that he was back. Yes, that would work. But how could she be happy with Derek if he didn't exist? No, that wouldn't work. She stood up from the couch and began to pace; what if she wished herself out of existence? Would that even it out? No, that would just be stupid. She vowed to never wish for anyone else not to be born, no matter how mad she was at them. She never wanted to get into this mess again. But she was still at a loss for a plan to get Derek back. She hated the fact that Sam was dead, Ralph was not alright, Kendra was a pregnant dropout, and whatever else happened because of Derek's disappearance.

She heard something at the door and stopped in her tracks. It was now only a quarter until eleven. Unless her family had skipped the movie, they shouldn't be home. She saw the doorknob twist, and wondered who was trying to get into her house just by walking in? She began to get scared, and instead of thinking rationally and going to the window to see who it was, she was circling the couch, ready to hide behind it. There was a click at the door. They had a key, whoever it was had a key. That meant it had to be her family. But why were they home so early. She had now convinced herself that it was them, but yet she couldn't calm her nerves. Something about this didn't seem right.

She grabbed onto the back of the couch, digging her nails into the fabric. Now the doorknob was twisting again. The door was opening. Casey was about to see who it was. But when she saw the shaggy brown hair she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Derek?!" she cried, and rushed over to him making sure it was really him.

Derek raised his eyebrows, "What?"

"I- I mean- just- how?" she stuttered as she looked at him up and down, trying to tell herself this was really happening.

"What are you rambling on about Space Case?" Derek smirked at her, and she frowned.

"Where the heck have you been? You were gone all day yesterday?!"

Derek looked confused, "No I haven't. I was at school yesterday and I was here last night. We had that big fight, don't you remember? The one where you wished I was never born."

As he said that, something like hurt flashed in his eyes, but Casey didn't notice, "No. We had that fight on Thursday."

"Yesterday was Thursday. Where have you been?"

"No! Yesterday was Friday and the worst day of my life! All because of you. It really was a prank wasn't it? Oh good job, Derek! It must have taken you all night to change everybody's rooms! Oh, and the school, good job, you must have spent all the early morning changing things there. And making a tombstone for your best friend, and asking him to pretend to be dead. That's extremely low. And having Ralph be all depressed, that must have been hard. Oh, and thanks for having Emily 'fill me in'. Where did you find that Eric kid to pretend to be her boyfriend?" She spoke really fast, and with every word she grew angrier and angrier.

But with every word, Derek grew more and more confused, "What in the world are you talking about?"

"Oh, don't play all innocent! I'm tired of this stupid prank I really am! I can't believe you even got Paul to cooperate! I'm impressed, and all the photo-shopping must have taken some time. You must feel real good about this one. You finally managed to pull off the best prank ever!" She screamed at him.

"What photo-shopping? What prank?"

She sighed angrily and dragged him by his hand over to the family picture, "How did you do it? How did you get us to look like that even though we never took a picture like that?"

Derek was silent as he stared the picture that he was not a part of.

"Derek! You put me through hell yesterday, the least you can do is tell me how you did this!"

"Casey. I didn't mess with this picture. I could never do something like that. You guys must have taken that without me!"

"We're all wearing the same clothes we took in the other family picture with you! Why aren't you in this one?" Casey asked, angrily, even though she didn't believe him.

"I don't know Casey! I have no idea why I'm not in this picture!" He looked around at all the other pictures, "I'm not in any of these!" He jumped off the stairs and in the kitchen to look at the pictures on the refrigerator. "I'm not here either!" he yelled, then he ran over to the bookcase, there had always been a picture of him and Marti there. He yelled as he looked right at the picture that now featured Edwin and Marti. Marti looked exactly the same, but instead of Derek hugging her, it was Edwin. Derek frowned, what was going on.

Casey had been watching him, arms folded and eyes narrowed, "Oh wow, I never would have thought that buried deep within those pranking genes was some good acting." She sneered, she really was mad at him for prolonging this stupid prank, "Just admit what you did and let's get over this. I'm really sick of this crap, Derek!"

He looked over at her, and he looked scared, "Casey. I'm not up to anything. You say it's Saturday, right? I don't remember anything about yesterday. The last thing I remember was leaving on Thursday night. I don't even remember coming home. I thought that was what I was doing right now. I thought I had fallen asleep in the park, and I hurried back here to get ready for school. But then I ran into you!"

She glared at him, "Nice try. But I have enough of this, when Mom and George get home, I'll ask them to make you stop this and put everything back to normal."

"Wait. What were you saying about a fake tombstone for my best friend? Are you talking about Sam?"

Casey narrowed her eyes even more, "I really do hate you." She whispered, and Derek noticed there were tears in her eyes, she still had not completely gotten over the shock of hearing Sam was dead, but now she staring at the person that had put her through it, all for a prank! She turned on her heel and marched up to Lizzie's room, which was still decorated like her own.

Derek, on the other hand, hurried into the garage, going for the Prince's keys in his pocket. But he couldn't find the keys, and when he got into the garage, his car was replaced with a nice white one. He let out a low whistle, but realized that his car was not in the garage, and he didn't have the keys for it anyway. He went back inside, planning on asking Casey about the new car, but he stopped when he noticed a set of keys on the table. He smiled and glanced up the stairs to make sure she wasn't there and then grabbed them and hurried back into the garage.

He drove as fast as he could without breaking the law to the cemetery, hoping that Casey hadn't been serious in saying that Sam had a tombstone here. He got out of the car, and hurried through all the rows, praying that he wouldn't find the one he was looking for. But he did, and it knocked the wind out of him. There he was, looking at his best friend's grave. He looked at the date of death, and frowned. How could this say last year, when Derek had just seen Sam on Thursday at school? It didn't make sense. It seemed someone really was playing a prank, but it wasn't him.

He decided that he would go talk to Sam and see if he knew there was a fake headstone in the cemetery with his name on it. But as he was walking back to the car, he saw a familiar face standing by it. She obviously hadn't seen him, but was looking around, as if trying to find someone.

"Casey?!" Emily called, and Derek got confused, why was Emily looking for Casey here?

He hurried over to her, "Hey, Emily." He said, planning to go on, but she turned around and looked at him curiously.

"Who are you?" she asked, not rudely, just sincerely confused.

"I'm Derek. You're next door neighbor?" he said, also confused.

"Oh, the one I've supposedly 'had a crush on for ten years'? What did Casey give you to put you up to this? She was going on about some Derek yesterday morning. Is she doing this to get back at me for telling that Greg kid last night that she was single? Because, I swear, I thought she really would have liked him."

It took a while for Derek to register what she was saying, "Emily, Casey didn't put me up to anything. I really am your next door neighbor. And I don't know about the whole crush for ten years thing, but Sheldon told me something like that—"

"Sheldon?"

"Schlepper, your boyfriend…"

Emily crinkled up her nose, "Ew. Why would I date that loser? My boyfriend's name is Eric. What is up?"

Derek shook his head, "I honestly couldn't tell you. But I got to go." He tried to politely shoo her from the front door of the car.

"This is Casey's car. Why are you trying to get in it?" Emily asked, sidestepping so she was completely in front of the driver's door.

"Because, she let me borrow it." Derek made up quickly, he just wanted to get out of here, and fast, because he was really starting to get worried.

Emily looked ready to protest, but he pushed her out of the way and got into the car. She was still standing by the graves, looking utterly perplexed as he shot out of there. He drove to Sam's house, knowing that his best friend would let him know what was going on. He parked the car on the side of the road and hurried up to the door, knocking nervously and tapping his feet.

"C'mon, Sammy." He muttered, impatiently.

The door opened and Mrs. Jones opened the door, "Yes, may I help you?" she asked, looking him up and down, as if to see if she recognized him.

"Yes, Mrs. Jones, I was wondering, is Sam here?"

At the mention of her son's name, her eyes filled up with tears, "What do you mean? Have you not heard? My son died over a year ago!" and with that she excused herself and closed the door.

Derek couldn't breathe. Mrs. Jones couldn't lie, she couldn't act, and she couldn't cry on demand. So either that was someone who looked like Sam's mom, or Sam really was dead, and had been for over a year. Derek went back to the car. But that was impossible. He had just seen Sam at school two days ago. Sam was telling Derek to lay off Casey. He hadn't taken it seriously, but he knew it had been Sam. He knew that he would remember his best friend dying. He had only blacked out one day. Not a whole year. What had happened to him?

He drove away quickly, wanting answers and wanting them now. He tried not to think about Sam, but a large lump appeared in his throat, and his eyes were burning with tears begging to be shed. But he refused to let them fall.

"Sammy…" he whispered, but then shook his head. Someone was just doing all this to mess with his head. It was probably Casey. She had put all the blame on him, to take the blame off herself. She had even told him the wrong day to make him think he blacked out for a day. He grew angry, and drove even faster until he was back home.

He ran up the stairs and barged into Casey's room. Scratch that. It was his dad and Nora's room before Casey had taken it. He walked back out of it, slowly, wondering what was going on. Then he heard a noise from Lizzie's room, and walked into it.

It wasn't Lizzie's room. It was Casey's. Derek's head hurt. What was going on? Casey was lying on her bed, but looked up instantly when he walked in.

"What do you want?" she said coldly, and went back to the book she had been pretending to read, while she really thought about how much she hated Derek.

"I want to know what the heck is going on! Why is Sam dead? Why doesn't Emily remember me? What the heck happened?" Derek cried, and as Casey looked up at him, she noticed him wipe a tear off his cheek hastily.

"What did you do, take acting classes?"

Derek let out a loud, frustrated yell, and went up to the edge of her bed, "Casey, if you do not tell me what is going on right now, I swear…-"

"Casey! We're home!" Nora's voice called from downstairs.

Both Derek and Casey's eyes widened and they took off downstairs, finally ready for some answers. But as they were running down the stairs, the family stopped dead in their tracks and looked curiously from Casey to Derek and then back to Casey again.

"Oh, Casey, who's this?" Nora asked, as polite as she could, motioning toward Derek, even though her daughter knew she was a little scared.

Casey let out a angry breath, "Mom! This is Derek!"

Lizzie smirked, "I was right, he is your new boyfriend!" she cried and laughed as Casey and Derek's cheeks went red and they jumped away from each other.

"Will you guys stop the prank already? I've found out. It's not funny anymore. It wasn't funny to begin with!" she cried, running down the rest of the stairs.

Derek stayed where he was, looking down at his family as they looked up at him, unable to recognize him. Even Marti was hiding behind Lizzie's legs, looking up at the 'stranger'. He wanted to know what was going on, and now.

"Casey, we told you yesterday, we are not pranking you. Now just admit what you and Derek were doing here alone."

Casey sighed and turned to George, "George, he's your son, you've can't just sit back and say he's not! He's your firstborn! Please, stop this, and tell me you know your son!" she pleaded with him.

He looked up at Derek, and Derek looked down at him. They eyes met, and Derek pleaded with his eyes for George to say that he knew him. But the look in his eyes when he looked away and back at Casey was heartbreaking. He really had no clue who Derek was.

Nora looked angry now, "Casey, I want you to stop this, this instant. George and I have plans tonight, and we need to get ready for them, but when we come back up here, you better have stopped acting like this, or leave with Derek." She said, and then she and George went into their room, leaving Derek confused and heartbroken, and Casey furious.

Lizzie looked up at Derek and whispered in Casey's ear, "He's cute. I'd say he's a keeper!" she then winked at her older sister.

Casey glared at her, "Liz. Derek is not my boyfriend!"

Lizzie smiled and shrugged, "Whatever you say, sis." And with that, she took Marti's hand, and led her upstairs. Derek got out of the way real fast by running down the stairs before they passed him.

Derek looked down at his last hope: Edwin. "Hey, Ed, you remember me, right?" he asked, sounding not like himself at all; scared and helpless.

Edwin shook his head, "Sorry man, I can't remember ever seeing you. But, I can tell you some great stories about Casey, I'm sure you'd love to hear!" he winked at the two of them, then followed his sisters up the stairs.

Derek sighed, turned to Casey, and glared, "Outside. Now." He fumed.

Casey nodded absently and followed him out the back door. She wanted to be mad at her family for keeping up the prank, but she knew they weren't that great at acting. I mean to look into the eyes of a family member and act like you have no clue who they were, and never breaking the face; that was extremely hard to do. Casey knew that they could not pull it off. She sighed, and sat down on the back-step, while Derek paced around in the grass.

"Okay, Casey. First, I find out that there are no pictures of me in the house, at all. And the pictures I was in, now have no trace that I was ever there. Then, I find out that my best friend is dead! And has been for over a year, even though I saw him on Thursday! And then, I see my next door neighbor, and she has no clue who I am! And then, to top off this wonderful day, every single member of my family, minus you, looks right at me and says they don't know me! I want to know why, and I want to know right now!!" he yelled at her, finally stopping his insane pacing.

She sighed once more and stood up, finally facing the truth: her alternate reality was real, and now Derek had entered it, but still unremembered, "Derek, you know when I wished you had never been born?"

Derek nodded, "Yeah, how could I forget?"

She looked away; he was going to think she was crazy, "Well, I think it came true. I woke up yesterday morning and I was in Lizzie's room. Lizzie was in the attic. Edwin was in your room, and our parents were in my room! They all had no idea who you were. At first I though it was just some stupid prank of yours to get back at me for what I had said the night before. So, I brushed it off, knowing it would blow off eventually. But I had to see if Emily knew why you were doing this, so I asked her about it, and she had no clue as to who you were either! She kept going on and on about this past that I know nothing about. How Sam died because he was drunk, and he was driving with Ralph, and they got into an accident, and Sam died, but Ralph didn't." She swallowed hard, and he looked away, that lump back in his throat, "And then she said that I had met Max at Emily's boyfriend, Eric's party, and not at the party you and Kendra threw. And then she said that Kendra slept with some guy, and then dropped out of school because she was pregnant! I didn't believe a word of it. But then I got to school, and my locker was still that awful locker by the boys' washroom, because without you, I never would have gotten a new one. And then I tried to talk to Ralph, but he yelled at me for talking about his best friend like he was still alive, or something like that. So I decided to wait for you by your locker, but then some nerd asked me why I was by his locker, so I gave up and went to Paul, because I knew you could never get him involved in a stupid prank like this. But, then I came to find out, he was in on it, and he said that he hadn't seen me since my first visit on my first day of school. Because all my problems were about you, and I hadn't needed to come in there, apparently. And then I left and came home, and I saw all the pictures, and I was forced to realize that you really didn't exist. And then I thought that I was in an alternate reality, and I tried to wish it away, and I thought that when I woke up today everything would be back to normal, but no such luck. And now I know that it's not a prank, and that it really is an alternate reality!" she took a deep breath and waited for him to respond.

He didn't say anything at first, but then he glared at her, "So, this is all your fault."

Her face fell, and she nodded, "I guess so."

He shook his head, "I can't believe it. So, you mean to tell me that I really don't exist here?"

She nodded again, "I'm so sorry, Derek." She reached out to touch his arm, but he slapped it away.

"Get away from me."

"I was just trying to help." She said, in a small voice, knowing that he was really mad at her.

"I think you've helped enough." His voice was cold, and for some reason cut through her heart like a knife.

He turned on his heel, and left the backyard.

"Derek!" she called after him, "Where are you going?!"

"To see my best friend. I never got to tell him good-bye!" he yelled back, and she could tell, that despite all his anger toward her, that he was just as upset by Sam's death as she was. No, he was even more upset. She collapsed back onto the back-step, and burst into tears. She had royally screwed up this time.

And as Derek walked down the road he had just driven down, he finally let his tears flow, as he thought about Sam and Ralph's car accident, and how Ralph must feel surviving when Sam didn't.

"What happened to you two without me?" he asked as he finally reached Sam's tomb.

He fell to his knees and sat down in front of the grave, staring at his best friend's name, and wondering how on earth this could have happened.

He had never been more mad at Casey in his entire life.

He liked to make her agitated, he liked to get her mad, but he would never wish this on her.

He would never wish this on anyone.

No, he wasn't thinking about the not existing.

He was talking about looking at the tombstone of the best friend you ever had, and not even being able to say good-bye.

"Bye, Sammy."

It was torture.