AN: I really didn't expect to update again so soon- don't get me wrong, I'm really glad that I'm able to, that the story is flowing so well for me, but it's more than a little surprising. Anyway, here's the next chapter- I promise, the next one will be a Don/Casey reunion. Enjoy! -Jess
Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine.
Chapter Three
Two Years Ago...
It was true, Casey Campbell and her step-sister, Devon Hartley, hadn't ever gotten along. In fact, they pretty much despised one another and interacted only when absolutely forced- and their parents had stopped trying to get them to even be civil to one another more than five years earlier. For the first time in the decade that her mother and James Hartley had been married, though, Casey now found herself wishing that she and Devon got along just a little- because then, when Casey crept down the spiral staircase of her mother and step-father's home and overheard her step-sister's new boyfriend ask about Devon's family- did she have any siblings?- maybe Devon would have said, "Yes," instead of giving him that dazzling smile and saying, "No." And maybe, just maybe, for the first time in nine years, Casey could have found herself standing in front of Donnie Flack.
Sure, she could have continued down the stairs and announced her presence, reached out and wrapped Don in a hug- but she'd learned years earlier that she definitely did not want Devon for an enemy. Her step-sister could easily put both of Cinderella's to shame when she wanted to, and Casey had seen that particular side of Devon too many times to risk it again. So, she hung back, silently hoping and praying that Don would look up and notice her.
He didn't- he just helped Devon with her jacket, ever the gentleman his mother raised him to be, and ushered her out of the mansion.
With a weary sigh, Casey made her way down the rest of the stairs, grabbed her own jacket, and left the mansion. She'd promised her friends she'd meet them at their favorite coffee shop for a night out- they'd all been so busy lately with school and work that they hadn't seen much of one another lately.
Two weeks later, when Devon came home ranting one evening about what an ass Don Flack, Jr., was and how he'd made a huge mistake by dumping her- who did he think he was, anyway?- Casey couldn't help the grin that broke out on her face. A guy like Don deserved better than Devon, that was for sure.
The next night, when she and the rest of her friends met back up at the coffee shop, she met and befriended Adam Ross- her former roommate's brother. Adam, it turned out, was a lot like her- he'd had a terrible childhood and still carried with him many of the insecurities born from verbal and physical beatings. They talked for hours- long past when all of the rest of their friends left and even after closing- and Casey found the man who would become her best friend in the CSI. And though he mentioned, more than once over the course of the next two years, a detective he worked with named Don, it never occurred to Casey that, in a city with more than eight million people, his Don and her Don might just be one and the same.
Nevertheless, if Adam hadn't spotted her sitting at a table in that very same coffee shop one day two years later, she never would have looked up and seen Don Flack standing with him.