A/N: Well, I couldn't get it out of my head, so I figured I'd type it up and give myself a chance at getting a decent night's sleep tonight. So, here you go- chapter two. Seriously, that's gotta be a record for me. Don't get used to it, though- really, this never happens. Enjoy! -Jess

Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

Chapter Two

Eleven Years Ago...

He'd been watching her now for about ten minutes. She was just sitting on the old tire swing his dad had hung off that tree seven or eight years ago, staring up at his sister's bedroom window. He knew she was going to miss Sam- Casey and Sam had been inseparable just about their entire lives, at least up until now. They were best friends. More than that, Don figured, they were the sisters the other had never had. For that matter, the Flacks were pretty much the family that Casey had never had.

He supposed he should be thankful on Casey's behalf that her constantly arguing parents had finally called their marriage quits, but as his sapphire gaze shifted from Casey's slumped form to the window she was staring at so intently, he realized that what he truly felt was anger- anger and sadness and helplessness because he knew that, by ending her marriage to Nick Campbell and taking Casey with her, the only thing Viola Campbell was doing was taking her daughter away from the only real family she'd ever known- and there wasn't a damn thing that seventeen-year-old Don could do about it.

From the moment he'd met her- she couldn't have been more than eighteen-months-old, he'd deemed her a pest. The first time he'd caught her sneaking through his bedroom window, when his younger sister had forgotten one night to leave her own open for Casey, he'd accepted that he actually had three younger siblings- Tommy, Sam, and Casey. He'd watched as his father taught her and Sam how to ride a bike; had carried Casey out of the middle of the street and bandaged her scrapes and cuts after a particularly nasty fall. He'd held her hand on the ride to the hospital when she'd fallen out of the same tree she'd been climbing across every night for years- in broad daylight nonetheless- and broken her arm. He'd picked on her and teased her, had held her when she'd cried, tickled her into tears- all of the same things he'd done with Sam.

As he watched Casey now, he realized that he was losing a sister, just as surely as if Sam was being taken from him. And he hated it.

She didn't hear him sneak up on her, but then she figured that shouldn't surprise her too much- it was Don Flack, after all. "We're gonna miss ya, pest," he mumbled as he slumped against the trunk of the tree. He wasn't good at good-byes, or with crying girls- and he really sucked when it came to knowing what to do when he had to deal with both.

Casey slowly turned her head to look at him. She had to swallow past the lump of emotion clogging her throat twice before she could get out, "I'm gonna miss you guys, too, Donnie." It earned her a small smile.

Very few people got away with calling him Donnie. At first, he'd fought her on it, telling her over and over again that his name was Don- not Donnie. There was a very big difference, thank you. She hadn't listened. She'd smiled, or stuck her tongue out at him depending on her mood, and chanted, "Donnie, Donnie, Donnie," until he'd rolled his eyes and given up for the day. Eventually, he'd quit arguing with her about it- the only people who called him Donnie were his family and he certainly had to admit that Casey was close enough.

Still, it wasn't his favorite nickname.

"Cassandra Amelia Campbell, get over here now!" Viola bellowed from in front of the limo that had arrived to take her and Casey to her parents' mansion. Viola had been born into money, rebelled and married a cop against her father's wishes, and given birth to a daughter even she wasn't sure if she'd ever loved. And when she'd finally given in and given up on her marriage, all she'd had to do was pick up the phone and call her father, tell him how wrong she'd been, how he'd been right and she'd been too stubborn to see it, and how sorry she was- and could she please come home? Her father had sent a limo to pick his daughter and granddaughter- whom, at thirteen-years-old, he'd never even met- up.

If the whole situation hadn't made Don- and just about everyone he cared about- so freaking miserable, he probably would have found it very funny. Instead, as Casey rose slowly from the tire swing and began to walk as though she were going to her death, he reached out and pulled her into a hug. He wasn't really sure what to say, so he muttered the first words that came to mind- words he'd spoken to her a hundred times, words he'd always hated that she had to hear, words that he was sadly so sure she'd need to hear a hundred times more in the near future if her grandparents were anything like their daughter.

"You're not a mistake, Case. Don't ever let anyone tell you different."

For years to come, whenever Casey felt lonely, whenever she started to think that maybe she should never have been born, she'd hear her best friend's big brother's voice in her head, repeating those words over and over until she believed them. Every fight with her mother, or her step-sister, or her step-father, would lead to replaying those words in her mind. Every time she broke up with a boyfriend, she'd cry into a pillow and whisper them to herself, wishing Donnie was there to wrap her in a hug and whisper them to her instead.

And when she looked back on her childhood, she'd say that she didn't know what she would have done without the Flack family next door- without her uncle Donald and aunt Maggie, without Sam, without Tommy, and without Donnie- and she'd say that she wouldn't be the strong, confident young woman she was- most of the time- without Donnie Flack and those words.