Derek returned to the office and immediately started to put in place the plans they had discussed earlier in the day. He phoned the specialist leasing company that arranged for the high-performance cars he drove when his own car wasn't suitable. The company were discreet, efficient and offered the cars on a short term basis. Casey would change cars regularly and when the cars left her usage they would be immediately minutely detailed and the ownership re-registered. Derek gave his requirements briefly over the phone, quoted his account number and nodded with satisfaction as they agreed to have the first car delivered to the department within the hour.

Next Derek called his contact in the department responsible for protection surveillance for people connected to the force. He threw Spike's name around a bit, knowing his boss would be in agreement of his actions, and demanded 24/7 protection for one Casey McDonald.

"But I thought…" Derek's peer, "Rusty" objected.

"You thought what?" Derek asked, slightly belligerently. "Look, I know she's not in the department but she's a…she gets spousal privilege." He said, smiling to himself as he joked internally with himself.

"Yeah? Spousal privilege? Who's the lucky guy?"

"What?"

"Oh come on Derek. You think us guys down here were cut off in the war or something? The rumour mill is rife with stories about the hot chick from the Papillion case. Seems she's got the whole of your department taking cold showers and even more disturbingly that desk sergeant from the range."

"Jeez, Rusty, you're starting to sound like Jazz."

"Hey Jazz is cool. Tell him I said hi and he owes me a beer for that stunt he pulled with the bar girl last month…So this Casey…she really is attached? I mean is it totally hopeless? I mean maybe her relationship isn't that steady and she'll be looking for a rebound fairly soon."
Derek took a deep breath. "Rusty. Shut the fuck up, I live with her, okay?"

"Yeah but rumour has it you're just her roommate. That she's like a sister to you."

"She's off limits. Do me a favour and tell the rest of the pack that." He couldn't keep the possessive edge out of his voice. Rusty picked up on it.

"You're the guy? Ha ha! Well I'm definitely going to come and introduce myself. You have no skills when it comes to women. Hell, I haven't even seen you with a girl in the entire time I've known you."

"Yeah…because of Casey."

"I thought she was new on the scene."

"Long story which I'm not sharing. Look dude, can you sort this protection detail out or not?"
Rusty shrugged at the other end of the phone. "Sure."

"How long will it take to set up?"
"How about now?"

"What?" That was lightning fast even on "Buddy" timescales.
"Spike's had Casey under surveillance for three months."

Derek hung up the phone stunned. Spike had been watching Casey for three months? Why? Did he think she was a security risk?

He stood up and cross the floor to Spike's office, tapping the glass window on his way into the room where Spike had his head over a report.

"You'd think at least one of these morons would know how to use there/their/they're properly." He said softly.

"You're hiring them for their brawn not their brains." Derek pointed out.

"Actually, I'm hiring them for both. Do you understand the difference?"
"Come again?"

"With your "there's". Do you understand it?"
Derek shrugged. "'There' for placement, 'Their' for possession, 'They're' for activity, as in 'They are' running."

"How do you know that? I've read your English reports. You sucked."

"I wrote an essay once that I made the mistake of letting Casey proof-read. I mixed them all up by mistake so in disgust she covered my room in pink post-it notes with examples on them. After the 2,000th pink square you kind of get the picture."
Spike chuckled. "She's good for you."
"She's perfect." Derek admitted. "Why have you been having her followed?"

His boss shrugged. "There are women who sail through life without a care in the world and nothing ever goes wrong for them, there are women who actively seek out trouble for no other reason than that it excites them."

"And?"

"And then there are women who attract trouble like shit attracts flies, even though their only contribution is the fact they exist. I decided quite soon after I met her that Casey falls into the latter category. I know she's important to you, so I had her followed."

Derek pulled an amused grimace. "I'm trying very hard to ignore the fact that you just called my girlfriend a heap of shit." He pointed out.

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Girlfriend."

Derek chuckled and turned to leave the room. "You might want to have a word with the surveillance team. Clearly they aren't doing their job properly!"

"What happened?" Jazz asked as Derek returned to his desk.

"I was just asking Spike why he's having Casey followed already."
"He is?" Jazz brushed the new information to one side immediately. "But, I didn't mean just then. I meant last night."

"I got home, I went to bed, I went to sleep."

Jazz frowned. "Did you talk?"
"To the best of my knowledge I don't talk in my sleep." Derek stated, avoiding the question.

"Did you and Casey talk?"
"We've had this discussion. You know we did. I agreed to her staying in Ottawa."
"Yes, but did you really talk?"

"About what?" Derek asked, sensing there was more to this than Jazz trying to find out if he'd slept with Casey.

Jazz opened his mouth to speak, wondering if he was doing the right thing by bringing up the scenes he had witnessed the previous evening, but before a sound came out of his mouth, the phone rang.

Jazz, eager to miss the drama of his imminent conversation, snatched the receiver up.

"Yo!" He barked into the phone. Derek rolled his eyes at his colleague's enthusiasm.

"Whoa! Slow down! I can't understand you. Who is this?"

Derek turned his eyes back to Jazz who had stood up.

"Yeah. He's here. Are you okay? Yeah yeah…" Jazz put his hand over the receiver.

"Derek, it's Casey." He said. "She's crying so much I can't understand a word she's saying."

Casey was in a good mood when she entered the Trauma wing of the hospital. She was fairly sure she didn't have any of those supposed telltale signs of a heavy make-out session such as swollen lips, hickeys or mussed up hair which all good chick lit says are essential. But inside her whole being was still tingling from the goodbye kiss she had just enjoyed with Derek – and the afterglow of last night. There really is nothing better than finding out that the person you've being in love with for most of your adult life loves you too. And that the sex works!

The one sign she did have was a sort of enigmatic smile that it would take rather a lot to remove from her mouth.

She dropped off her coat, slipped into scrubs, clipped her ID tag to her pocket and then made her way to the floor. Rosita noticed the improvement in Casey's demeanour but said nothing, preferring to wait until a break time before quizzing her.

The Trauma unit was busy and Casey was quickly absorbed into the bedlam.

Time sped by, and before she knew it an hour had passed by.

After a while, the rush died down and Casey began to contemplate getting herself and Rosita a coffee. Over the time that she had been working at the hospital, Rosita had become a good friend – one of the few non-male non-cop acquaintances she had made. They hadn't really seen much of each other outside of work, but they spent most of their shifts having disjointed conversations about life the universe and everything. With the pressures of the busy ER, sometimes it could take them four hours to have a five minute gossip.

They were just about to excuse themselves from their duties for a quick fifteen minute catch up in the staff lounge when the desk phone rang and because Rosita was standing next to it, she answered.

"Oh hello, Ma'am." She said, with a slight downturn of her brow. Casey smiled. Clearly it was management. Everyone always had the same reaction to management.

Their calls rarely heralded any good since they were usually about cutting back on things, or unauthorised leave or stuff. Rosita didn't need to address the administration staff so formerly. Casey knew she was doing it out of nerves.

"Yes. She's here. In fact, she's standing next to me." Rosita said and Casey heard the worried tone in her voice. "Of course Ma'am. I'll send her up."

"What?" Casey asked when Rosita came off the phone.

"You need to go upstairs ASAP."

"Oh?"

"Marie Antoinette wants to see you."

Casey felt a chill down her spine.

"Marie Antoinette" was the nickname the staff had given to the head of the hospital's administration team. It came about because she was named Marie Anton, was French-Canadian and renowned for the ruthless way with which she sacked people.

Casey had personally never met the lady, but just the thought of her made her feel like an errant schoolgirl on the way to the principal's office.

"Wish me luck." She called to Rosita.

"What sort of funeral do you want?" Rosita joked.

"Dignified, lots of music – but don't let Mikey choose!" Casey called back over her shoulder.

"Ms McDonald." Marie Anton (badly dyed hair failing to cover the grey) said, looking over her half-moon spectacles at the woman standing before her. "I've heard of you of course. Urgent transfer from London, strings pulled all over the place to get you here."

Ms Anton did not seem impressed. Casey didn't exactly blame her. She wasn't particularly pleased with the way her transfer had been arranged but she had accepted it at the time because it meant she didn't have to go home to London and leave Derek at a time when she had only just got him back.

She watched the stern woman of about forty as she turned her eyes back down to the file in front of her.

"Top of your graduating class, eh? Hmmm…friends in high places?" There was no humour in the older woman's voice.

"Pardon?" Casey asked, astonished.

"I asked if you were used to the path in front of you being greased." Ms Anton said more forcefully.

"Ms Anton. I have to say I resent the implication in that comment." Casey shifted her balance to stand straighter. "I worked extremely hard to get where I am."

"Really? Because it seems to me that you have had a very charmed existence: A high class degree, a higher than usual position in one hospital, and a privately arranged transfer to another hospital…tell me, Ms McDonald. What exactly did it take to get where you are right now? Who did it take?"

Casey's eyes widened and many, many hot comments sprung to her tongue in her own defence. The one thing Casey had learnt over the years with hospital politics was that losing your temper didn't solve anything.

"Can I ask why you wish to see me?" She said quietly. "Is there a problem?"
"Is there a problem?" Ms Anton repeated quietly, thoughtfully. "Oh yes. I'd say there was a problem."
"Do you think you might possibly tell me what it is so that I can understand where this character assassination is coming from?" Casey asked, barely keeping a lid on her anger.

"I'm had a complaint from a very senior member of staff about impropriety on your part. It's a very serious allegation and I find it necessary to suspend you pending a formal inquiry."

"A complaint? Suspend me?" Casey gasped. "But, I've done nothing wrong!"

"Forgive me, Ms McDonald, but the last time I looked, offering to," She looked down at her notes. "… 'spread your legs' in return for the chance to get on one of the senior boards of this hospital was very wrong indeed."

Casey stared at her in horror. "I did what?" She hissed. "There must be some mistake, I never…"

And then it hit her.

Robin.

In her Derek-induced fog of the past sixteen hours, Casey had pushed the horrible events of the previous night to the back of her mind.

Now they came flooding back.

Robin, her boss, her superior had tricked her into going to dinner with him, had made veiled offers of job preferment in exchange for something sexual. He had tried to seduce her – and kissed her when she had given him no encouragement. In every definition of the word he had sexually harassed her – something which could cost him his job.

Now in the cold light of day he had recognised this, where Casey had been too distracted to notice. Now in an effort to save his own hide, he had lodged a complaint against Casey, citing her sexual harassment of him.

Now if she tried to claim he had harassed her, the claims would look false.

"In view of these allegations, I have no choice but to suspend you pending an investigation and a formal hearing." Ms Anton went on. "Unless of course you would prefer to save us all the trouble and resign now."
Casey, devastated, and on the edge of tears, woke up.

"Resign?" She asked.

"Ms McDonald, it is the word of a senior trauma specialist, a blemish-free physician of many years standing against a more junior doctor who has only worked for this hospital for less than four months. Who do you think is going to walk away from this with their job?"

Casey found a new fire within her. She drew herself up to her full height and folded her arms.

"Firstly Mizz Anton," Casey hissed. "It is Doctor McDonald to you. I got my degree on merit and merit alone, thank you very much and you will address me by my correct title. Secondly," Casey leaned forward. "I have not led a charmed life, I went into Trauma medicine because I lost someone I love very much to a gun shot wound. The subsequent grief and drive to succeed is what made me graduate with such high honours and earned me the respect of my college professors. As a result of that alone, they wrote unsolicited glowing letters of recommendation to every major hospital in Canada and the North-Eastern seaboard of the US. I was offered positions in twelve. Instead of choosing the best, I chose London because that was where my brother was shot. Their trauma centre was under-staffed and he had to be transferred to Toronto. I wanted to change that situation." Casey gasped a breath.

"Thirdly, it was your esteemed colleague who insisted that I go to dinner with him despite the fact that I live with someone. It was him that chose an expensive restaurant and I have in my purse a check which I intended to give to his secretary during my lunch hour. It is enough to cover my portion of the bill in a restaurant which I was uncomfortable in. Fourthly, I am in a loving and committed relationship with someone I love and live with. The thought of any kind of relations with anyone else frankly disgusts me."
Marie Anton tried to say something but Casey held up her hand.

"And finally, if the department hadn't been so busy as soon as I arrived for my shift it would have been me filing a complaint against Robin. His behaviour last night was appalling. I have absolutely no intention of resigning from this job which I love. I also have no intention of allowing you or your Head of Trauma ruin my life with your lies and blatant attempts to save his skin. Now, if you still intend to suspend me, I shall return downstairs and collect my things before leaving. You will be hearing from my lawyers in due course."

And with that, Casey spun on her heel and left the room, the door slamming behind her.

In the corridor outside, she fell apart.