He'd known Casey McDonald for something like thirteen years – or was it fourteen? Regardless, Derek considered himself an aficionado when it came to her moods. It didn't take him long that evening to work out that she was pissed off.

Mind you, the force with which she slammed the front door closed behind her when she arrived home was a definite sign that even a person meeting Casey for the first time would have been able to interpret!

Derek sighed. Was he seriously the only person on the planet who was happy right now? What with Jazz and his foul mood…

And surely shouldn't Casey be somewhere as close to euphoric as Derek since it was her fault he was hovering on a permanent state of bliss? When he had said goodbye to her before lunch she had certainly seemed happy. Her eyes had sparkled and she was a bit giggly, signs that he engendered in her the same joyous feelings she brought to him.

"Okay." He started as soon as she arrived in the kitchen and slapped her purse down on the work surface. "What did I do?"

Casey glanced up from taking off her heels as though she was distracted. "What?"

There was a pause and then she looked towards the entrance hall and realised how she had arrived.

"Sorry." She apologised and leaned towards him to peck him on the cheek. "It's not you. I'm just frustrated at the audacity of some men."
Relieved by her words, Derek wasn't having any of this "peck on cheek" business or her preoccupation with any thoughts of other men as soon as they were reunited after so many hours in a day. He caught her around the waist so that he could attack her mouth and the pair of pumps clattered to the floor as Casey allowed herself to get lost in the deep kiss.

"Me." Derek insisted. "Not some men, think about me! I've not seen you since before lunch and you left me half-hanging then."

"The ego has spoken." Casey grinned and leaned into him for another deep kiss.

"Too right!" Derek replied, his eyes mirroring the excitement in her own. "Bed. Now. The only man I want on your mind is the one who is currently frustrated in front of you."

"I've only just got home." Casey said in a half-hearted attempt at resistance. "Don't I even get chance to grab a shower and change my clothes?"
"You can shower later." He said, already assisting with the clothes removal process. "And there is absolutely no requirement for clothes for the next hour or so."

"Der-ek!" She giggled as he backed her towards the bedroom, her bad mood disappearing completely.

As Casey allowed Derek to walk her to bed, she wondered how long it would be like this – the playful need for each other. Very little had changed between them since she had moved in with him; they still argued, although unlike their exchanges as teenagers this was more in the way of banter than bicker. Neither was the companionship and affection new with the dawn of their sexual relationship.

In fact really the only difference in the way they treated each other was that they didn't have to hold back anymore. The affection had boiled over into physical need.

Casey knew none of this was new. All that had changed was the ability to act on their feelings.

Frequently.

She hoped it was a sign that this was a lasting relationship.

"Are you always going to pounce on me as soon as I walk through the door?" Casey asked a while later, shifting her head on the pillow to look at the man lying naked beside her. He grinned. They were both rather pink from exertion.

"Nope."

She raised an eyebrow as he continued.

"Sometimes you'll get home before me…then it will be your turn."
Casey shook her head in mock despair. "What am I going to do with you?"
"Another round would be good."

Derek thought he'd just throw that one out there just in case her thoughts were in close proximity to his own.
"And lead to a delay in me feeding you?" Casey pointed out trying to avoid his distraction.

Derek looked conflicted. "Hmmm…note to self to snack before I attack." He chuckled and then dived into her neck again. "Preferably, snack on the girlfriend."
Casey batted at him. "Anyone would think you hadn't had sex for seven years." She said rolling her eyes. "Rather than seven hours."

"They were seven tortuous hours." He confirmed. "Plus I'm making up for a long drought before I finally caught you. You're a lot better at it than I thought you'd be. I'm impressed…and addicted." He pulled back and grinned.

"You're an animal." Casey said honestly.

"You're beautiful. I can't help it." Equally honestly.

"We need to eat Derek." Casey reminded him… what?

"Why?" Derek asked as though food came very far down the list of priorities for him.
Casey chuckled. "I never thought I'd see the day that you turned down food."

"Me either. But now it's here, let's make the most of it." He replied with a smirk.
"Der-ek!"

He laughed and pecked her on the nose. Then his expression became serious. "I love you." Derek said suddenly.

"For my carnal ability?"
"No."

"Because I give you hours of amusement with my manic behaviour?" Casey anticipated.

"Close." He smirked.

"I give up." Casey sighed.

Derek stroked the slightly damp hair from her face. "Because you make me feel like a teenager again."
Casey narrowed her eyes at him. "Am I supposed to feel complimented or offended by that?"

"You make me forget the last seven years my love and that is no mean feat." He whispered. "You heal wounds I didn't even know I had. Yes, sometimes it is unintentional - when you do some thing klutzy or I remember the crap we got up to when we fought, but mostly it's the way you look at me or just do stuff for me, like leaving a bowl on the breakfast bar for my cereal, or moving my damp towel to the heated rail or…fuck! I sound like a sap!"

Casey smiled softly. "My sap." She whispered. "I love you too."

They did get out of bed then, although neither of them was in a hurry to get dressed, so they pulled on PJs and retired to the kitchen to find food.

"I take it the "some men" you were pissed off with when you got home referred to Robin?" Derek said as Casey fished a cottage pie from the freezer to heat up.

"No, actually. It was that asshole of a partner of yours."

Derek frowned. "I thought you liked Jazz."

"Yeah. So did I before I realised what a manwhore he was."
"I'm sorry…did you just say "manwhore"?"

"Yes. Why? Do you disagree?" Casey curved an eyebrow.

Derek shook his head. "Not exactly although it is a little harsh. I'm just surprised to hear you use a term like that."
"A little harsh? Derek the guy couldn't keep it in his pants if he superglued his zipper!"

"Now wait a second. Jazz has lots of girlfriends but he's not that bad. The girls he goes with know what the score is and he always wraps it. It's not particularly romantic but no one gets hurt."

Casey stopped what she was doing and stared at him. "No one gets hurt? No one gets hurt? Seriously? Pah!"

Derek frown deepened. "Yeah. No one gets hurt. He's not in a relationship. He doesn't do relationships."

"That's patently obvious." Casey snarked back.

Derek put his hand on her arm. "Casey, back off, okay? The guy's my friend and I've known him a long time."
"Not long enough." Casey stated.

Her boyfriend paused wondering where this vitriol towards Jazz had come from. He thought back to Casey's plans for the day and then it became clear.

"Just what the hell did Beatrice say to you anyway?"

Casey's mood improved dramatically. "Bea was very helpful actually. I really like her. She has some good ideas about how we can argue against my suspension. She's going to sort some character references out for me and investigate a few lines of enquiry to see if Robin has done this before."

Derek nodded. "That sounds great. I want to hear about it at length…after you tell me what Bea said about Jazz."

Casey's sudden happy mood evaporated. "She told me what a complete bastard he was to her. Did you know they were engaged?"

If Casey expected that to be a shock she was disappointed.

"Yes actually I did. He told me."

Casey folded her arms and looked smug.

Derek sighed, sensing a fight coming on. "He also told me what a complete bitch Beatrice was to him."

"Bea is not a bitch! She's a really nice girl."

"She was nice to you, because she wants your business."

"That's crap! She's a lovely girl and a fantastic lawyer – even Jazz agrees with that last statement. She has this amazing grandmother who's her secretary and she calls her Gamma."

"Her grandmother calls Bea "Gamma"?"

"No! Bea calls her grandmother "Gamma". She's nearly eighty but as sprightly as anything and fiercely protected of Bea. You should hear her on the subject of Jazz!"

"Oh I'm sure Bea has shared with "Gamma" her own little bedtime story."

"He hurt her, Derek. "Gamma" rightly didn't like that."

"He hurt her? Make that, she jilted him, Casey!"

"She didn't jilt him Derek."

"He showed me the ring, Casey! It had a massive dent in it where she threw it at him."

"The dent was because it flew into the road and got run over by a car, not because she threw it hard. It slipped out of her hand as she was trying to give it back to him."

Derek's eyes widened in triumph.

"…because she was jilting him."

"He…" [pause for a whisper] "screwed her roommate!"

"No he didn't."

"Bea says he did."

"Well Bea is telling you lies."
"She doesn't lie, Derek." Casey insisted.

He snorted. "Of course she lies Casey. Everyone does – even you…okay…you tell little white ones so tiny they are invisible to the naked eye, but the more normal of us…we lie! Big fat juicy ones."

"Do you lie to me?" Casey asked with mock casualness.
"All the fucking time!" Derek said to prove a point, and then he watched her face fall. "I mean…I don't lie to you about the important stuff. I just lie to…"
Casey folded her arms. "…to get me to go to bed with you."

"No, Casey! Don't start this." He stepped close to her and put his hands on her hips. "I don't lie to you about us. I'm too scared I'll lose you. I lie to you about whether I remembered to pick up the milk, whether I had a burger at lunch time, occasionally I lie about my alone time in the shower. I do not lie about loving you. I do not lie about wanting you in my life. I do not lie about moving heaven and earth for you. I mean all that. It's just sometimes I don't feel like eating healthily, or sometimes I forget the groceries and sometimes I like to…do stuff in the shower that girlfriends really don't want to know about…despite what all that shite romance stuff you occasionally read tells you."

Her mouth twitched up slightly. "Did you just admit to…?" She asked, blushing.

"Yeah. I guess I did. See…I will do anything to keep you."

Derek took a breath as a pause and pulled Casey into his arms. "Why are we arguing about someone else's break up?"
She slumped against him.

"I don't know." Casey looked up at him, her arms weaving around his waist. "Maybe neither of them was telling us the whole truth."

Derek pressed his mouth against hers for a moment.

"What did Bea say to you? I promise not to over-react."
Casey pulled back and sat down at the breakfast bar.

"She said that they were childhood sweethearts who made it all the way through high school as a couple. Everyone expected them to get married and have kids. She said that they even went to college together, got engaged in their first year and seemed on course to spend the rest of their lives together."

Derek nodded. "Jazz says the same. It's weird he got this faraway look in his eyes and became this whole other person when he was talking about it. Now there was a sap!"

"Bea talked for a good fifteen minutes about the lead up to their engagement. She got this spark in her eyes too. It was cute."

"What did she say about the break up?"
Casey took a deep breath. "That it shouldn't have been a break up. That she thought she knew Jazz well enough that it wouldn't be the end of them. They had planned to settle down in Ottawa together but that she said that she did really well at college and got offered a place at Harvard reading Law. Jazz didn't want her to go."

"Jazz said she told him she was going rather than discussed it with him."
"Bea says she tried to discuss it with him but he over-reacted and told her if she wanted to go to Harvard it would be the end of their engagement."

"Jazz says they had even started talking wedding dates and then the next thing he knows she was leaving for another country."

"Bea says he didn't want her to succeed, he saw her as his wife and not as an equal partner."

"Jazz says she didn't give him chance to get used to the idea. The next thing he knows she is refusing to see him, and her roommate won't let him in the door.
"Bea says he never even tried to speak to her."

Derek glanced at Casey.

"That's not…"

Casey interrupted. "Bea said that her roommate confessed to having a drunken romp with him the following night."

"Jazz says he spent the night on a park bench. I believe him. The guy was almost in tears."

Casey was thoughtful. "What does Jazz say happened next?"
"He managed to get to see her but she threw the ring at him. When he picked it up it was buckled and shapeless. The next thing he knew she'd moved to Cambridge and was being an ice queen, refusing all contact with him and his friends."

"So he decided to be a manwhore."

"Casey..." Derek warned.

"Derek…" She protested.

They paused.

Casey sighed. "Bea was distraught. She thought he'd betrayed her so she shut herself down. She hasn't had a relationship since. She threw herself into her work and ignored the rest of her life."

"Like you." Derek said, knowing what the post-Derek years had been like for his step-sister.

"And Jazz…?"

"He took her accusations personally. He did nothing for almost eighteen months but when he realised that she wasn't coming back, that it really was over, he decided to be what she'd already written him off as…"
"He started sleeping around?"
"That implies he was reckless…he wasn't. But yes. He decided that if Bea thought he was having lots of casual sex, and couldn't be faithful…that's what he'd do. Jesus! This sounds like one of our arguments!"

Casey laughed sadly.

"Do you want to bang their heads together or shall I?"
"How about I hold one down and you wield the other?"

Casey stepped into the enclosure and security of Derek's arms.

"They both got it wrong, didn't they?"

"Yup. Helped along with a roommate with a hidden agenda."

"How sad!" She said, nuzzling close to him.

"Very."

"Promise me we'll never argue like that again."

"I promise."

They were quiet for a moment, listening to the sounds of each other's breathing and their own hearts beating.

Before long the breathing and beating were in sync.

"What are we going to do about it?" Casey murmured against his neck.

"It's our responsibility to do something about it because…?" Derek asked, kissing the top of her head affectionately.

"Because you love me, and we both care about Jazz and Bea." She said as though it was obvious, unconsciously rubbing her body against his.

"They won't like us interfering." He warned.

"It's not interfering. It's us needing a night out and inviting them to join us."

"Casey…" Derek cautioned.

"Come on, Derek. Aren't you sick of him moping?"

"Yes. But that doesn't mean I like the idea of suicide."

"Don't be afraid, D. I'll protect you." Casey promised.

Derek raised an eyebrow.

"With your body?" He asked hopefully pointed rubbing Casey's body again.

"Of course not. Although if I thought I had your full support in all my endeavours there would be a reward package."

"Reward package?"

"Certain benefits would be on offer."

Derek smirked and pulled her tighter. "Is this an "on completion" kind of deal or do the benefits kick in sooner?"

"Well, I'd rather like to eat that cottage pie but after that, I'm open to negotiation." Casey promised.

"Okay. You have a deal. Only Casey?"
"Derek?"

"Does that pie have to go in the oven or can it be cooked in the microwave? I'm starving!"