AN: Just in case you thought that little anecdote in the previous chapter was far-fetched. I got the following review after I posted it:

From kristen12386:

"Oh my God! The story you just told is so similar to that of a story about my friend's dad. His work building has a valet and he has just gotten a new toyota corolla, blue. Well he goes to pick up his car and the valet guys give him his keys and he sets off. He gets home and my friend and I are there. I turned to my friend Julia and asked why her dad got rid of his new car and got a honda accord. Joe (Julia's father) came in and keep commenting on how roomy the car felt and that he really did such a good car for such a cheap price. Julia and I just stared in astonishment...bc not only was the car different but it was black as well. We literally had to bring him out there and show him the make of the car before he realized his error. Sorry such a long story, but it was just so funny! "

"So...Casey..How's it hanging?" Edwin asked, leaning up against the work-surface in the kitchen.

"How's what hanging, Ed?" Casey asked in a distracted voice as she cleaned the kitchen.

"You know...life, the universe, everything."

Casey wiped down a work-surface and cocked her head.

"That would depend."
"On what?" Ed asked casually.

"On where you're going with this?" Casey said, throwing the cloth into the sink and turning to face him, her arms folded across her chest. Her posture was strangely familiar and Edwin realised that she had unconsciously adopted a standard Derek-pose.

"Why do I have to be "going" somewhere?" Edwin asked with what he hoped was nonchalance. It failed because Casey-channelling-Derek was as intimidating as Derek being Derek.

"You have the subtlety of a brick, Edwin Venturi and I should have known that you would screw this up." A voice said from the doorway.

Lizzie. (Another person who on occasion could surgically removed Edwin's balls with a single glare.)

"Hi Liz." Casey said with a grin. "Is this an old Lizwin special?"

Lizzie frowned "Lizwin?"

Casey widened the grin. "You know...joint tactical operation between you and Ed. Not unexpected over the years although I do think you are a little old for the games cupboard."

Her sister waved the comment away. "There was no "games cupboard" involved in this discussion we just both agreed that you and Marti are looking very shifty tonight. Marti looks like she did that time with Dimi's robot." Lizzie pointed out. "And you looked distracted the way you always do when your brain is out to lunch."

Casey shrugged. "Marti always looks shifty, she's a Venturi."

"And your excuse is...?"

Casey didn't lose the smile. "Guilt by association? You're wasting your time, you two. I've just been running around trying to make sure that the food is on the table for my guests – who," Casey slapped Edwin's hand away from the plate of "after dinner" chocolates. "...apparently want to eat me out of house and home."

Lizzie raised an eyebrow. "This isn't your home any more, Casey. You've made that very clear."

There was a tone to her voice that made Edwin wince and move away into the other room. He wondered if Marti would be more forthcoming about what she was up to. He certainly didn't want to hang around if the conversation between Casey and Lizzie was going to become awkward. Especially since Casey was withholding the chocolates.

Left in the kitchen, Casey sighed, knowing that part of Lizzie's problem was the new distance between them: physical and emotional.

"I'm sorry, sis. I can't help the fact that I need to be somewhere else now. You saw how I was when I lived here. I wasn't functioning."
"It's not just the physical distance. You've changed, Casey." Lizzie pointed out. "You're doing things that I never would have put you down for. You're behaving in ways I just don't recognise as Casey McDonald."

"Maybe that's because the changes needed to be made." Casey said. "I didn't like what I had become."

"Neither did I, Case. But we're not talking about giving up cheerleading here. I'm worried that you've swapped an obsession with one man for obsession with another."

Despite herself and the gravity of the conversation, Casey smiled a little.

"I haven't." She said truthfully. "Believe me Liz, I really haven't." She regarded her little sister with interest. "Mom got to you, didn't she?"

"Yes, but she didn't need to. I thought it myself. I don't like how no one else in the family has met him."

"Marti has." Casey said without thinking.

Lizzie's eyes widened. "Marti?" She said astonished and Casey didn't miss the slight jealous note to Lizzie's surprise. Lizzie was Casey's real sister, Marti was only her step-sister, yet it was the latter who had met the guy that Casey had apparently given up everything for.

"Liz...don't take it personally, okay. It's just the circumstances..."
"What did she do? Appear on your doorstep or something? Edwin suggested we do that but I told him you'd be really upset."

"No, she accidentally bumped into us." In the bedroom. Casey added to herself so that she wasn't truly lying. This half-truth thing was getting easier.

"Where? London?"

Casey nodded.

Of course the trouble with half-truths is they inevitably inspire subsequent questions and sometimes the answers to those are even harder to give than those for the original.

"He came to London? When?"

Casey opened her mouth to answer, but was saved by her mother.

"Honey, we're going to head off. George has got a community law surgery tomorrow and the doors open at seven am."

"Community law?"

Nora smiled. "The practice has extended its community service from just cut-price legal advice to offering free legal advice once a month. They open first thing in the morning and work their way through the waiting people until seven pm. George is exhausted when he gets home but he says it makes him feel good."

Casey was impressed with George's philanthropy. "That's amazing!"

"Thank you." Lizzie answered and seeing Casey's confused expression grinned. "It was my idea."

"Wow Liz!"

"I had some friends with squatting issues who couldn't afford legal advice. George managed to help them – because the landlord really was in the wrong – and he enjoyed doing it. I suggested he made a habit of it."

Nora smiled at her younger daughter. "He's really grateful. George likes taking the part of the underdog, or rather taking on the establishment, even if it is about an old lady getting a parking ticket for parking outside her own house. Lizzie, are you coming with us?"

Lizzie nodded. "My car's at their house." She noted to Casey. "But you and I haven't finished our little discussion."

Nora acted as though she didn't hear.

Casey nodded. "I know."

She wondered how she was going to deal with the topic when the time came.

In the end, the entire family left in one go. Edwin had no desire to be left in the company of Marti and Casey when the rest of the family had gone. He had a feeling rather than him interrogating them to find out what they were up to, they would perform some sort of tag-team approach and manage to coax out of him the fact that he had been unceremoniously dumped...again. It was still quite raw, and only Lizzie knew about it.

He had told Lizzie the night he bailed her out of jail, explaining why he had the dinner reservation going spare. They had made a pact. He wouldn't tell their parents about the arrest-thing, and she wouldn't reveal about the whole "caught my girlfriend with another girl" situation.

It was sad, because he had thought that particular girl was perfect and she got on so well with the rest of the family – particularly Lizzie. She had even dealt really well with his unfortunate occasional blurts about girls with...large investments. In fact, come to think of it she had made a few blurts of her own.

Maybe she had been a little too keen to get on well with Lizzie...

So in summary, Edwin, through a degree of cowardice about being quizzed on his (lack of) love life, left with George, Nora. Lizzie and Robbie.

As the last of the Venturis passed out of the front door, Casey closed it with a click.

"Wait!" She announced as Marti took a step towards the bedroom. Casey crossed to the window overlooking the street and watched as the family got in their respective cars. Then Edwin pulled away in one direction. George in another.

She also noted how each car immediately acquired a non-descript tail; dark saloons with two regulation hair-cuts in the front seats.

Spike was good at his job.

"Okay. They've gone." She said, making no further audible comment on her observations. Marti made for the bedroom door, but it opened before she got there and Derek came into the living room.

And for a moment, they all stood and stared at each other.

Marti recovered first.

"You bastard!" She screamed at Derek, throwing her body towards him, her fists pummelling him in the chest as he lifted her up. "I thought you were fucking dead!"

"I'm sorry." Derek muttered, deciding to berate her about her language later. "I am so so sorry!"

He held her to him as the anger turned to sobs, and then the fist-thumps became pecked kisses on his cheek. Sisterly of course...in a way that Casey's would never be.

Eventually, her anger was spent and the realisation that he was alive and in front of her hit Marti like a bowling ball.

"I hit you." Marti sobbed as she tried in vain to smooth out creases in Derek's t-shirt; creases caused by her tears. "I'm sorry."

"I deserved it." Derek mumbled back. "You shouldn't worry. Casey hit me harder than that when she found out I was still alive." He chuckled. "Although she kissed me first. I don't know what was more frightening."

Watching from a few feet away, Casey snorted at his comments, but there were tears running down her cheeks too. She knew Derek would give her hell about it but she couldn't ignore the emotions which surfaced as she watched Derek and the little sister he loved so deeply as they enjoyed their reunion. It was bitter-sweet because although they no longer mourned Derek, they now mourned the lost years and there was an additional sadness in the fact that the rest of the family weren't here having a similar reaction.

As she watched Derek looked up at Casey over Marti's head and she saw tears on his own cheeks. Apparently, Derek Venturi did tears too.

Stunned, Casey sniffed as her tears began afresh – he held out a hand to her, and when she took it, Derek drew her into the hug he was sharing with Marti. Between them, the two girls turned his t-shirt into a wet dish cloth, while he pressed kisses against both their heads and tightened his arms around the two most important women in his life.

It took a while before everyone stopped crying. Casey decided that they all deserved some additional fortification and opened another bottle of wine. It had been a dry-ish evening, because with all the drivers in the room, and the tension of knowing what Derek had said to Casey earlier about being at risk again, neither the family nor Casey had felt in the mood for drinking much while they were eating. Now of course was different. There was something to celebrate and Casey had a feeling they would be talking long into the night.

It was strange, Marti decided. Despite all the hugging and love suddenly present, from the moment the three of them broke out of their hug, there was a new tension in the air. Casey might be talking to her, offering wine, but her eyes were having a different conversation with Derek's. It confused Marti a little, and she kept waiting for one of them to share the secret, but neither of them spoke.

As they pottered around the room, tidying and getting ready for the long discussion that was inevitable, the tension remained, Marti would have put it down to a typical Derek and Casey fight but she watched (still-confused) as Derek gently touched Casey whenever he could. He slid an affectionate arm around her shoulders, moved her to one side with his hand on the small of her back when he needed to pass by her, and he squeezed her shoulders even as he teased her with comments about her planning and organisational skills. Marti had known there was something developing, but the small signs of affection were still a shock to her. The last time she had spent any significant time with her brother and her step-sister they had hated each other with a passion.

Now it appeared most of the hate had dissolved and all that was left was the passion.

Certainly watching them right now was like watching Victorian foreplay – all chaste actions but with plenty of longing looks and subtle contact. It was a heavy atmosphere, but not necessarily an unpleasant one; certainly less exhausting than the old days where being in the room with Derek and Casey would give you a headache – or a very strong urge to bash their heads together.

Marti smiled to herself as she concluded that urge hadn't disappeared as such, just mutated into what could best be summed up as the desire to shout "Get a room already!"

In time, they each found comfortable spots to sit in the living room. Marti had hung back, waiting to see where Derek sat down before she made her own choice. She wanted to be near him after so long apart.

There was a recliner as well as the couch and she expected him to take the former, but he didn't. When Casey placed the bottle of wine, glasses and the uneaten dinner chocolates on the coffee table, she immediately sat down on the couch and Derek picked the spot beside her. It left Marti the recliner which she was pleasantly surprised about because she knew it was the most comfortable of the seating in the room. It also suited her because its position next to the couch meant that Derek was now placed between Marti and Casey.

Casey leaned back in her seat on the couch, the action automatically bringing her up against Derek's side. Neither he nor Casey appeared aware that he dropped his arm down from the back of the couch to her waist, his fingers finding her hip bone and brushing against it gently. Casey unconsciously dropped her own hand to his, linking their fingers.

When she got over the renewed shock of how much things had changed between her two eldest "siblings", Marti started to contemplate what that meant for them, for her and for the rest of the family.

"Where do you want to start?" Derek asked his little sister, breaking across her thoughts. "I know you are going to have questions."

As he spoke, Casey rested against him, sipping her wine and he glanced at her with a smile. He knew there were hard conversations to be had with Casey – and soon- but for now his time and his explanations were for Marti. She had kept their secrets for months, the least he could do was share some of his recent history with her.

The delay in the argument with Casey was helpful too. He could sit calmly beside her on the couch, enjoying her proximity in ways that wouldn't be possible tomorrow. Tomorrow he would have to leave and he wondered if she would ever forgive him.

Casey continued to sip her wine. She too could see the argument on the horizon and part of her wanted to start it now, in her mind there were a hundred reasons why Derek shouldn't go – reasons he could not fail to listen to. But right now...this was Marti's time and she wouldn't take that from her step-sister; not when Derek was leaving again. Casey felt Derek's shoulder beneath her head, his arm around her middle and his lips in her hair. Part of her wanted to fight now...the rest of her wanted to stay exactly as she was for as long as she could get away with it.

The evening progressed. Derek retold the tale of the events leading up to his death, at which point Casey took over the story-telling until they reached the stage where he woke from the induced coma to his new life.

Marti listened and shed a tear or two, and she even asked a few questions. She got information from the story, it was true - it was nice to hear the scenes that were missing or clouded in her memory. But whilst she took that information in, what she got more than anything else was less tangible. For a couple of hours she could just sit there and listen to the sound of Derek's voice, alive, full of his character, and nearly eight years after she thought he had died.

When the bad stuff had been told they moved onto the good stuff; the "Derek meets Casey stuff" and the details of their life in Ottawa. It was the anecdotal history that was guaranteed to make Marti laugh. Derek told of Casey meeting Jazz for the first time, and Casey told about the early days of living together – particularly the occasion when Derek had emerged naked from the bathroom one morning completely forgetting that Casey was still in bed. (They neglected to tell Marti that it wasn't the first time that Casey had seen Derek without any clothes.)

To Marti it felt weird to hear how they shared a bed and to see that neither of them minded. By this stage, now almost acclimatised to the sight of Derek with his arm around Casey, Marti expected them to come clean and admit to their relationship. Knowing them both so well, Marti thought Casey would blush and Derek smirk at the story of their eventual...coupling? but she never got to test her theory, because when given a slight prompt, they both denied being anything other than best friends. (Terminology which would have been astounding in its own right – if it was true. And Marti was certain that it wasn't).

About 1am, Casey announced that she couldn't stay awake any more and stood up. Immediately, Derek missed the warmth of the make-shift hot water bottle that had been resting against him for hours but said nothing.

"So what's the plan for tomorrow?" Marti asked yawning too.

"I'm going to let myself wake up naturally, then we'll pack up the car and head home." Casey said, stretching. "We've got work on Monday."

She said it with conviction as if making a point. For some reason, despite her tiredness, now that Marti had had her turn at Derek's attention Casey felt the need to allude to the argument that they all knew was coming. Even if for Marti it was just a sense of rising tension.

"Erm..." Derek started and frowned. Casey looked at him with mock innocence, raising an eyebrow as though daring him to contradict her. She knew what was going through his mind.

Seeing the approaching conflict, Marti turned to her brother. "Are you going back with Casey" She asked Derek who was now engaged in a staring competition with Casey.

He didn't want to have this discussion now. He wanted a nice calm conversation with Casey in the morning, where he could have time to formulate how he was going to explain his plan to her. She needed to stay in London, away from him. It was less a case of him leaving her and more a case of her staying away from him.

"I don't want to talk about this now." He said. "We'll talk about it tomorrow, when we're not tired and...emotional."

Marti closed her eyes. "Bad choice of words, Derek." She muttered quietly. She may not understand what the argument was going to be about but she knew that nothing good ever comes of a guy accusing a girl of being "emotional". Particularly when the guy is Derek Venturi and the girl, Casey McDonald.

Casey's reaction wasn't quiet. "Emotional? Why would I get emotional about it? Rather egocentric isn't it Derek? Expecting that I'll get emotional about you leaving us again. Maybe I'll be pleased to see the back of you." In her anger, Casey forgot about Marti.

"Leaving?" Marti asked, her heart sinking.

Derek took a deep breath. Shit.

"Derek's panicking." Casey said as Marti began to feel six again – small with a trembling bottom lip. "There's evidence his cover maybe blown – which is why he's here – to say goodbye - He is about to disappear off the planet again and he thinks he can do that without consulting us."

"Derek?" Marti questioned.

"That's not exactly true. I'm going back to Ottawa tomorrow, yes." Derek said firmly. "But Casey is staying here. It's safer. You're all going to have protection." he looked at the disbelief on their faces. "And it's not as if I won't be in touch." derek added lamely at the end.

Casey glared at him."Like hell I am I staying here. Protection Smection. I'm going back to Ottawa and you're not leaving again. Not if I have anything to say about it. You need me..I mean us and I'm sticking to you like...like...like a bad case of Herpes."

Derek frowned. "Did you just compare yourself to an STD?"

Casey snorted. "Seems only fair since one of us is already an irritating rash." She tilted her head to one side. "And stop trying to distract me by making us argue about something else. We're arguing about you leaving m...Ottawa."

"No we're not." Derek objected. "We're arguing about the fact that you need to stay in London."

Marti sighed. "Only you two could argue about being together when that's clearly what you both want."

"What?" They both turned to her.

"We're not arguing about being together. We're just..." Derek started. Casey rolled her eyes.

"I'm not happy about Derek making decisions about my life for me."

"I'm making sure you have a life, Drama queen!"

"No you're not. There is nothing to say that I'd be any safer here than I would be in Ottawa. I have commitments in Ottawa. Remember?"

"You mean like your commitment to Robin? I thought this was about not wanting to live without me in your life."
"You egotistical jerk!" Casey snapped.

Marti sort of agreed with Casey, although right now Derek sounded more like a jealous jerk than an egotistical one. But, he had a point too.

Didn't he?

Marti groaned. Her head was hurting.

"Look. Why don't you take time to sleep on it? We're all a bit emoti...drunk. No one is going to say the right thing tonight. Why don't you get a good night's sleep and make your decision tomorrow?" She looked up, suddenly aware that she was standing between Derek and Casey – a position no one in their right mind wants to adopt.

They glared at her...Marti stepped out of the way and they glared at each other instead.

"You...You can have the bed. I'm sleeping on the couch!"Casey said finally. And with that she stormed off to get changed, slamming the bedroom door and leaving Derek mid-stinging retort.