Disclaimer: I don't own Life With Derek, the character Cher and Josh, or Warm Bodies.

Chapter Eight

I woke up the next morning with a feeling of optimizm. Most people think that's the norm for me, but they'd be wrong. Usually I'm a frantic bundle of nerves, just waiting for something to go wrong. The only time I don't feel that way is when it's already gone wrong.

This feeling intensified when I was able to take a shower as soon as I got up. A simple pleasure but after years of sharing one bathroom with four other people, even my time at university hadn't diminished my appreciation for it.

I strolled into the kitchen with a blissful smile on my face, ready for a full day of shopping with Cher and Emily. It was the first time they'd met but I was willing to bet good money that they'd get along. Yep, today was going to be a good day. I got a bowl of cerial, humming as I went.

"Hey, honey. You're in a good mood." Mom smiled at me.

I smiled back, struggling to ignore Derek and Edwin who were trying to do goofy impressions of me.

Mom rolled her eyes, "Don't worry about them, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

They stopped abruptly then laughed. "That may be, but there's a big difference between imitation and mockery." Derek said pointedly.

"Derek." Mom said warningly.

"Nora." Derek replied in the same tone, then flashed her a smile, "We're just messin' with her, she's used to it."

Mom remained unconvinced.

"It's ok Mom, just another couple of hours and I'll be at the mall with Emily and Cher, where no annoying step-brothers can bother me." I smiled at the thought as I spoke.

"Cher? Well, maybe I ought to spend some time with my step-sis and my dear friend Emily." Derek said evilly.

"Don't even think about it!" Only he could make me snap from happy and carefree to homcidal in such a short amount of time. "She's a married woman! Or she will be anyway. And even if she wasn't, she wouldn't go for a pig like you!"

Something flashed behind his eyes, anger or hurt, then he composed himself and pulled back his evil smile. "I wouldn't bet on that. No one says no to the D-man."

"D-man? What are you, twelve?" And we were arguing. Again. Both our breakfasts lay abandoned as we yelled insults back and forth until Simon started crying and we both stopped, looking guiltily at him and Mom. "Sorry." I said sheepishly.

Derek nodded his head in agreement, the closest he was ever going to come to apologizing.

Mom didn't say anything, she just looked tired. And that's when the guilt really set in.

I ate my breakfast in silence and left for Emily's. She wouldn't mind me being early.

When we got to the mall, we immedietly sat down for a drink. Cher wouldn't be here for another hour and I hadn't given Emily time to have breakfast.

"I think it's really starting to get to her," I mused, "I mean, she was never a big fan of me and Derek fighting, but now she doesn't yell at us or anything. And Mom always used to yell at us, even if it was the quiet type of yelling where she didn't really yell at all, you know?"

"Not really, no." Emily replied, but I barely registered her response.

"But now, it's like she's just tired. Tired of the fighting. Tired of us, of me." I was starting to get upset and Emily chewed frantically, trying to free up her mouth for some words of encouragement or consolation.

"Casey, you're reading too much into it. Sure she's tired, she has a little baby to deal with now as well. I'm sure she isn't tired of you."

I gave her a look.

"Well, if you think it's that bad then why don't you stop fighting?"

"Because. Even if I decided no more fights, Derek would still be Derek. He'd still pull pranks on me and call me names and try his best to ruin my life." I explained.

"Can't you just ignore him? Maybe if he doesn't get a reaction, he'll get bored and leave you alone."

I sighed. If only it were that simple. Then I thought. What if it was? What if I could ignore him and he just went away? Wouldn't that be worth taking a few hits from the Derek arsenal without retalliation?

My phone beeped. It was Cher, she'd arrived. I looked at the time in shock, I'd spent the whole hour talking over my Derek woes. "Cher's here." I stood up, waving toward the entrance. Cher waved back an walked over to us.

Emily smiled as Cher sat down. "Hi, I'm Emily."

"Cher." Cher smiled back.

They immedietly fell into girly chit chat and I smiled, glad that my friends got along.

After nearly a full day of shopping, we stopped at Emily's for another drink before Cher and I headed home. Naturally, my Derek problems emerged again as I described our trip to the cinema to my friends.

Cher listened open mouthed and I remembered that she hadn't heard about how we were before. "So, you two are always like that?" She asked disbelievingly.

"Pretty much," I nodded. "Us McDonalds 'invaded' the Venturi household when Derek and I were fifteen and it was hate at first sight. We even tried to convince our parents not to get married so we wouldn't have to live together, but we gave in when we saw how unhappy it made them. Unfortunately, Derek thought it was an excuse to prank me, tease me and generally ruin my life, and has done all of the above ever since."

"Wow, so I'm guessing cola fights aren't the worst it ever got?" Cher asked wide eyed.

"Nope." I shook my head.

"You guys didn't seem that bad at dinner?" Cher said sceptically.

"We aren't always, I mean he can even be pretty sweet on occasion, but it always, always comes back to ridiculous fights and shouting matches." I sighed. "For every good thing he does there's a hundred and one bad things."

"Good things?" Cher was obviously enthralled, and it was refreshing to talk to someone who wasn't sick to death of hearing about me and Derek.

I smiled, "Usually they're to make up for something terrible he did."

"He ruined her dress for prom so she was going to stay at home but we made him find a dress and go get her." Emily gave as an example.

"Really? He found the dress? He told me you found it in the theatre department." I asked Emily.

"Well, I guess I did, but there were four or five of them. You really think anyone but Derek would be brave enough to choose one for you?" Emily asked me as if I was stupid. I guess I was being a bit of a prom-zilla at the time, I wouldn't have wanted to be in her place choosing a dress for me.

I smiled a little. "And then there was the time he sabotaged my dance competition." I continued at Cher's questioning look. "There was this big dance competition and the winners got to dance on TV. Dance was kind of my life at the time, so Derek auditioned to mock me. Problem was, he made the cut, and when the other finalist realised he wasn't really a dancer, she stole my partner, leaving me with no one to dance with."

"But Derek offered to be her partner and they won! They did this amazing dance where Derek was like a zombie trying to catch Casey!" Emily enthused. She reached for her laptop. "It's on youtube, I'll show you!"

I grinned as we watched the familiar video.

"Wow!" Cher looked at the screen the same way she'd looked when we watched the film adaptation of Emma for English Lit. I inwardly groaned. Derek was right, even the taken ones went for him.

"I know!" Emily practically bounced, pleased with Cher's reaction.

"Kinda reminds me of something." Cher frowned, trying think what it reminded her of.

I blushed as the 'she's hot' and 'kinda reminds me of you' conversation popped into my head. If she mentioned Kate Bush or Wuthering Heights I'd die.

"Ooh, I know. The trailer for that zombie film coming out in September." Her face brightened.

"What?" Emily and I asked, intrigued.

"Josh said the book was brilliant and he's gonna make me watch it with him. It's about this zombie who falls in love with this girl when he eats her boyfriends brains."

Emily and I made a face.

"Yeah, I know, but it gets better. You see, in the book, when a zombie eats someone's brain it gets all their memories. So when he ate her boyfriend's, he remembered her and all this stuff about her, so he protects her and gets her back home where she's safe. But being around her sorta makes him remember what it's like to be human." Cher tries to explain. "Here, I'll show you the trailer." She reached for Emily's laptop and typed in 'Warm Bodies'.

After watching it I had to admit I was curious to see it. It looked funny, and strangely the romantic element was there too. I wondered if I could get a hold of the book.

"So, what about sweet things that weren't to make up for being a dick?" Cher interrupted my thoughts.

"Urrm," I reached into my memory. "Well, he saved me from going out with a complete jerk." I quickly described what had happened with Scott.

"That's a lot of effort just to show up the jerk." Cher said, obviously enjoying the re-telling.

"Oh, Derek's very protective of Casey." Emily said in a tone that made him out to be some kind of hero.

"Oh?" Cher's eyes sparkled and I blushed. I had to admit, the way Emily said that, coupled with the stories we'd just told could give the wrong impression of mine and Derek's relationship. An impression that Cher was all too eagerly latching onto.

I looked to Emily, but she was busily bringing up any example of her previous point that she could.

"There was the time when Truman cheated on her with her cousin and he confronted them and immedietly drove Casey all the way home from Toronto. Ooh and the time he quit his job to defend her when the boss was mean to her. And the time his best friend Sam wanted to go out with her and he went totally mental and wrestled him..." Emily was clearly warming to her theme.

"Em, I think she gets the point." I was blushing like crazy at this point and would have done practically anything to stop Emily from continuing to confirm Cher's (wrong) ideas about us. The more the conversation progressed, the more certain Cher seemed to become, and at this point I was in some doubt as to whether I'd be able to convince her of the truth, that Derek and I were nemisi, not secretly in love. "I, uh, I'm gonna go. It was fun. Today. Bye." I managed to say before leaving as quickly as I was able.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I entered the family home. At least here no one was going to think any of those things about me and Derek.

My relief was short lived as I saw Lizzie and a boy on the sofa, Derek glowering at them from the recliner. "Derek, can I speak with you?" I said, granting the SOS Lizzie sent me with her pleading eyes.

He got up without a word and followed me into the kitchen.

"I take it that was Darren?" I asked coldly.

He grunted in the affirmative.

"Well, I guess I'll go say hello so he knows that someone in the family has common decency." I said, giving him a death glare.

"I wouldn't bother, he clearly doesn't have any."

I folded my arms. "Did you even bother talking to him before you made this assumption?"

"I didn't have to. I know his type. He's a user and he's only with her to get one thing." Derek scowled.

"How would you know? Or is it that it takes one to know one?" I shot back and his scowl darkened.

"I am nothing like him. I've just seen enough people who are to know. You should to since half the people I'm talking about, you've dated!"

That hurt more than I'd care to admit. "That is so not true!"

"Oh, really? Scott, Trueman, Max." He listed off.

"Max was nothing like that!" I defended.

"Really?" He stepped closer. "So the fact that Amy went to get herself tested for STD's after they broke up for the billionth time was just because she's that kind of girl!"

"And how on earth would you know that?" I yelled, wanting to escape. Max was the only real relationship I'd had that I held as good. I wasn't just going to let him trash it.

"I used to date her remember! We stayed friends, she told me." He looked me right in the eye so I knew it was true.

I couldn't help the tears that started. "Well, congratulations, Max was an asshole. You win! But it still doesn't mean Darren just wants to sleep with Lizzie!"

"You know the type as well as I do Casey!"

It was then that I noticed a distraught looking Lizzie staring at us from the doorway, Darren a little behind her.

"We came to get a drink." She said in a small, hurt voice.

Darren looked uncomfortable. "Look, I'm gonna take off. I'll see you around?" He asked Lizzie.

She nodded miserably. After he left she turned on us. "You always ruin everything! You're always fighting and I'm sick of it! I can't wait for you to go back to College!" She ran upstairs, leaving me feeling like the worst big sister in the world.

"This has to stop." I said once she was gone. "I can't do this any more, we're hurting people. So no more pranks, no more name calling, no more anything. I won't respond, I'll just ignore it. If you want to be a child then so be it. But I'm done." I said quietly, but I hoped firmly.

"Oh, you'll respond." He said with a grin that the occasion really didn't call for.

"I won't."

"Wanna bet?" He leaned forward towards me.

"No, no more betting." I turned and walked out.

Finally done this chapter, took me longer than the last few but I made it. :)

Hope you all like it.

P.S Warm Bodies is an amazing book and I can't wait to see the film, sorry if it's a little random to add it in but still a little excited after my sister told me they were making a film :)