Sorry about the wait, had a major case of writers block until today. This one's a bit drabbley but I enjoyed writing it (once I managed to get started) and I hope you guys enjoy reading it. :)

Chapter Twenty

By the time I had my phone in my hand to ask Derek about a ride home my confidence in the fact that we were back on good-ish terms was fading. Not only that, but a five hour car ride with him seemed like a bad idea, given that we always fought as it was and now I was beginning to admit that maybe Cher and Emily weren't so wrong about how I felt after all.

I sat staring at his contact information for what felt like hours, trying to push the ongoing debate on my feelings from my head. Lately it had been falling on one side in particular, and they weren't thoughts I wanted going through my head while I spoke to him. When at last I'd managed to smother the thoughts completely, I pressed the call button and raised the phone to my ear as if it might bite me.

"Hello, Derek Venturi, King of Cool speaking."

I bit back a laugh, "Sorry, must be the wrong Derek Venturi, I was looking for Derek Venturi, idiot step-brother."

"I'm sorry, I don't think he exists. Maybe your anxiety has spawned an imaginary friend to help you cope." He said in mock seriousness.

"Oh, so he's my friend is he?"

"It's your imagination." I could almost hear his noncomittal shrug.

"In that case, maybe he forgives me and can give me a lift back home sometime soon?" I said in a sugary tone.

"You do something to upset your imaginary friend, Case?"

"I kinda yelled at him when maybe he didn't deserve it." I hoped that would satisfy him but couldn't help adding, "Much."

"Really? You saying you were wrong?" His voice was deceptively neutral, as if we were actually talking about someone else.

I cursed under my breath, he had to push for a complete victory didn't he? "No, not entirely... But maybe a little." I forced myself to say, before continuing. "But if he did me this favour I'd make it up to him."

"How would you make it up to him?"

"Imaginary pancakes at an imaginary diner on our way home?" I suggested.

"Add some imaginary gas money and an apology in person and he just might. I hear he's free this next friday?"

"It's a date." I said, and then quickly covered my mouth in horror. He was silent for a moment and when he started to speak I said 'gotta go' and hung up before I could hear what he was going to say, then hyperventilated for a few minutes. When I got my breath back I almost regretted hanging up; I was now insanely curious about what he was going to say, what he thought about my little Freudian slip. I swore, though as usual it was fairly mild and did nothing to lessen my nervous frustration.

I clenched and unclenched my hands a few times before giving up. "Fuck!" I said aloud, but though it did ease the irritation a little, I felt immediately self-conscious and ashamed.

"Wow! What was that about?"

I spun around to face my room mate, as I hadn't heard her come in. "What?"

"You with the big nasty word." She barely glanced up as she started digging through her bag.

"Oh. Just got something on my mind." I could feel the embarrassment burning me up inside.

"Uhuh." She replied absently. "Anything I should be worried about? Sharing a room with you and all."

"No, just, umm... I..."

"That bad, huh?" She looked up from the text book she'd recovered from her bag.

I smiled awkwardly.

"Let me guess, a guy?"

"Kind of." I answered hesitantly. "I don't really want to talk about it right now though." I shot her another nervous smile and escaped from the room.

The week passed slowly, the only really enjoyable part being when I called home to tell them we were coming on friday, and when the day finally came I rushed out of my morning class without asking for extra reading so I could have some more time to freak out before Derek came to pick me up.

I wished more than ever that I hadn't cut him off; as it was I didn't know how to act. Did he think I meant a date? I did sort of ask him out then called it a date. Or maybe he assumed it was just a figure of speech? Would he act weird or make fun of me or be completely normal?

My head was spinning and I spent my time repacking my bags three times until they couldn't be better organised, then forcing my eyes to stay on the pages of my book. When I finally heard a knock on my door I nearly jumped out of my skin.

I stood up, stumbled over my bags, and landed with a thump against the door. "Coming." I called out weakly. Carefully pulling myself to a stand, I smoothed down my clothes and hair and opened the door.

"Ready to go?" Derek asked. I scrutinized him but he seemed to be acting normal.

"Yeah, just give me a sec." I turned and picked up my bags, making sure my letter to my room mate specifying that I would know if her and her boyfriend made out on my bed and would kill her, was in plain view. "Okay, let's go." I walked past him, being very careful not to trip again or smash into him.

We walked to the car in near silence; Derek absently texting someone and me trying not to stumble and running through lists in my head to make sure I had everything I needed. I was surprised when he offered to let me drive the first stretch, but declined in case my klutzilla tendencies led to our early deaths. Though I didn't tell him that of course.

"Is this more of that making it up to me stuff?" He asked a little suspiciously when I shook my head and climbed in passenger side.

"Are you admitting you're an imaginary idiot step-brother?" I deflected.

He looked confused for a moment before he realised what I was talking about. "Well I am too good to be true." He smirked, starting up the engine and pulling off.

I rolled my eyes. "There's no way I thought you up."

"Aw, you give yourself too little credit." He reached over to ruffle my hair and I batted his hand away. "So I'm assuming you've already planned exactly when and where we're going to stop for my pancakes?" He asked after a minute.

I nodded and turned to the window, trying to hide my blush at his reference to our maybe almost date.

"You gonna tell me?" He asked like he was talking to a child.

"Oh, right." I flustered, not having realised that I was supposed to tell him where we were stopping. I unfolded the map that was in my bag and pointed to a red circle I'd drawn around the diner I'd chosen. "Here."

He glanced at the map before returning his gaze to the road. "Not for a couple of hours then." He stated, drawing a sandwich out of the glove compartment and unwrapping it one handed.

"Der-ek!" I tore the sandwich from his hands. "You shouldn't do that while driving!" I admonished.

"You unwrap it for me then." He shot me a smirk and reached for the radio controls.

"You shouldn't eat while driving anyway!" I tried again.

"Better than not doing and passing out from low blood sugar." He argued, the smirk never leaving his face.

"Then you should have eaten before setting out!"

He reached to take the still wrapped up sandwich back and I batted his hands away. "I didn't want to fill up before our 'date', now did I?"

I blushed so much it felt like my head would explode. I couldn't tell if he was completely sarcastic or not and the uncertainty was torture.

"Fine!" I mumbled and, eager to take his mind off my verbal blunder even at a risk to my life, unwrapped his damn sandwich.

His smirk widened into a grin as he took it. "There's another one in there." He mentioned after taking a bite, no doubt to display the icky, chewed up gunge through his open mouth.

I pulled a face. "I don't even want to know what you would have put in there."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

After ten minutes of watching him eat his epically proportioned sandwich I gave in and reached into the glove box. I pulled out the cling film package and kept my eyes on Derek, watching for some evidence that I was going to find something disgusting in there. Nothing. I opened it.

"Cucumber?" I asked, surprised.

He frowned. "You like cucumber, right?"

I nodded before realising he probably couldn't see it with just his peripherals. "Yeah, I just didn't know you knew that."

His smirk made a return as he took another bite and told me through another disgusting mouthful, "Purple fog."

I gasped a little. "That was years ago!"

He shrugged and the topic was closed.

After an hour of trying to put up with Derek's driving music, I couldn't take it any more and asked him to turn it off. The answer was a resounding 'no'.

"Come on, Derek, we have nearly four hours to go. It's only fair we alternate the music!" I whined, knowing the tone would annoy him no end.

"Exactly! Four more hours stuck in a car with you. Don't you think that earns me the right to listen to what I want?"

"Ditto!" I sang.

"Fine, we'll listen to your crap... Oh, wait! I think I might have left your CD's in the trunk. And the antenna is broken for the radio. Too bad!"

"When did you break the antenna?" I asked. It was only just over a week since I was last in the car and it hadn't been broken then.

He shrugged. "Some time last week."

"What did you do?" I tried to picture how it would have happened but all I got were images of him messing around with his friends and snapping it off while doing something stupid.

"I was upset. It was there." He said carefully.

I turned to him, shock plastered on my face. Since when would he hurt the Prince deliberately? "You did it on purpose?!"

He shrugged. "Blessing in disguise; now I don't have to listen to that noise you call music."

I let the matter drop. For now. "Doesn't matter. I bought an MP3 adapter." I grinned triumphantly, pulling it out of my bag.

"Doesn't that still need the antenna?" He asked doubtfully.

"Yes and no. Whatever broken stub is left should still pick up the signal. George has one, remember?" I giggled a little, remembering the little sports mascot thing George had tied to his car antenna. It had got caught on something when coming out of the garage (they actually used it now the Prince didn't live in there any more) and snapped the antenna off at one of the telescopic segments. It was strange looking at newer cars without the metal bar coming up from the roof; growing up it had always been an important part in my mind.

He groaned. "Please tell me you're lying."

"Nope."

"Well, my music is staying on!" He turned up the volume.

I waited for a spot on the rode when he'd need both hands and pressed the eject button, snatching the CD and holding it out of Derek's reach.

"Hey!" He made a reach for it anyway.

"Der-ek! Keep your hands on the wheel!" I shouted, horrified.

"Put my damn CD back in!"

"No!" I rolled down my window.

"Don't you dare!"

"Oh, I dare!" I raised the CD to the open window.

"Put it back or I'll-"

"Or you'll what?" I asked sweetly, edging his precious music closer to death.

He opened and closed his mouth before visibly relaxing. "You know what? Go ahead. It's a copy anyway; I can just burn another when we get back."

"Doesn't save you on this journey though." I pointed out.

He shot me a triumphant look and pulled another CD from the drivers door.

I lowered my hand in defeat. "Can't we just listen to my music for a little while?" I pleaded. "I'll buy you ice cream as well as pancakes."

"Trying to bribe me, Case? Nice." He nodded approvingly. "But it won't work."

"If there's one thing I've learned from you it's that everyone can be bribed. You just need the right incentive." I replied. "So what is it?"

"I'm happy with my pancakes and my music, thanks."

I slumped back in my seat and dug out my headphones. I hadn't wanted to be anti-social, but there was only so much of this music I could take.

Derek glanced over at me. "Hey! You're meant to be keeping me company, I can't talk to you with your headphones in."

"Well, you should've thought of that before you forced me to listen to this sorry excuse for music." I touched a button on my phone and forced myself to relax as the music reached my ears.

Half an hour later he tugged on the wire, pulling the headphones out. "Fine, you can put your damn music on." He grumbled.

I smiled happily and set up the adapter, deliberating whether to put on something over the top girly in revenge, or something he wouldn't mind. In the end I decided on Bowling for Soup, loud and preppy enough to lighten my mood but not really girly. Maybe he'd actually let me listen to it for a while. I let it play and zoned out for a moment, thinking about one of my papers and mentally listing a few points I was going to make, imagining my lecturers reaction to my well written work. A noise snapped me out of it a little, and I absently listened as Derek sung along to one of the songs.

Sometimes, it's not the things you say,

Sometimes you're just in the way,

Sometimes I feel like I can't live without you

I jerked upright, immediately reading way too much into him singing it.

Sometimes, I swear you make me sick,

Sometimes I just wanna kiss you,

And tell you I love you,

For you I'd eat tofu,

And I don't like tofu,

Here he couldn't keep the laughter out of his voice and I laughed too. He looked at me with a grin when he heard me laughing and my breath caught as his eyes stayed on me as he sung the next line.

But you make me so happy, sometimes.

I couldn't tear my eyes away, even when his went back to the road. I also couldn't keep my over analytical mind from it's dissection of the look he'd given me, and the attachment of the lyrics he'd sung. The reasonable part of me knew it was me that put the playlist on, he was just singing along. Badly. But another part questioned why he'd chosen that song to start singing, I was pretty sure he knew 'High School Never Ends' and he didn't sing to that one.

I replayed the song, saying that I liked it and wanted to hear it without his caterwauling, pondering the lyrics even as he ignored my supposed motivation and joined in for some of the lines.

He shot me glances and my mind immediately picked up the lyrics playing when he did. My eyes clung to his as he reached one of my favourite lines.

I know sometimes I bring her down,

But every once in a while,

I make her smile.

His voice dropped a little, but he was definitely singing it. If anything, the fact he sung that one quietly instead of boisterously fuelled my inner musings.

I snapped my mind off the ridiculous path it was following. It was just a song, he would probably sing to the next one too.

Sure enough, he didn't stop singing until the playlist ended and we were nearing the diner I'd chosen.

"Turn off here." I told him as we neared our exit.

He just nodded, remaining silent until we pulled into the parking lot. "This place better do chocolate chip." He said, mock petulantly.

I laughed. "I checked their online menu, they do." I assured him.

"Wow, organised." He teased. "That's so sexy, how do you fend them off?"

I shoved him as we entered the diner. "Shut up. Some people find my organisational skills very attractive I'll have you know."

"Doubt it. It's probably more the control freak thing they like; bit of a kink in the bedroom, ya know?" He continued. "'Take of your shoes, don't trail mud in my room!', 'how dare you drop your dirty shirt on the floor, pick it up!'" He used his 'Casey' voice and added a mock-alluring pout. "Probably drives 'em wild."

I laughed, I couldn't help it.

"With that and your habit of pushing people onto beds and yelling at them, you'd make a great Dominatrix." He went on, presumably encouraged by my laughter. "'Madame Casey'," He tried out, "I can picture it now. You do own a leather cat suit, right?"

I blushed. "No, I would never own something like that!"

He smirked, "Shame. Doms make a fortune."

"Sit down and decide what you want." I avoided his gaze, too embarrassed to look him in the eye.

"Yes mistress."

"Shut up!"