Casey liked her apartment. It was classic. It was old in all the best ways with some period features, yet modern and clean – and importantly for someone whose personal habits tended on the OCD, it was easy to clean. The floors were original oak and smooth, the walls flat and painted, and the woodwork white and glossy. The kitchen was a bright marvel of solid wood and marble units with stainless steel fittings, and the two bathrooms were tiled in white ceramic with large windows. It was perfect.

Since she had left Angela's office four days ago, it had been cleaned to the point where she was sure there was a large sign on the door saying "stay away dust" because even at night when the air inside stilled, it left no dust on the surfaces for the following day. She knew because she had looked.

So on day four, she had resorted to going downstairs to the apartment of her elderly neighbour Mrs Cousins and volunteering to do her housework too – which only served to reinforce Mrs Cousins' personal belief that her young attractive neighbour was clinically insane…but hey! Who was she to turn down a free maid service?

Day four closed with nothing resolved in Casey's mind and she went to bed yet again unsatisfied with Angela's plan of Casey confronting her demons.

"Confronting demons". What exactly did that mean? Casey asked herself lying in bed staring at the ceiling. She had tried watching TV, but the only thing decent non-sport thing on was a series which she had been watching with Derek and she had taken to recording it so that maybe some day they could finish watching it together. She was annoyed at herself for doing that but she couldn't stop. A quick flick around confirmed her fear that she really was paying for a television service she didn't use and she eventually gave up and switched off, pulling out her ipod.

It gave her no satisfaction either, as it had last been updated by Derek, four months ago, and most of the frequently played songs on there were ones they had both liked. She tried to listen for a couple of songs but ditched the ear pieces and snapped its case shut.

Sighing at her lack of willpower, she switched the television onto the hockey match for a bit of what she had begun to term "illicit Derek action". That meant that Casey watched all of his games, just so that she could see him – or at least as much as was visible wrapped up as he was in his protective clothing.

He played well tonight. His form had improved over the past four months and Casey smiled wryly at the notion that ceasing contact with her improved his game. She came to the conclusion that he was getting over her and that he was moving on. It never occurred to her that, like Casey, he was burying himself in anything and everything that could take his mind away from her.

She watched her best friend steal the limelight from every other player on the ice with a smile, and silently berated herself for being so weak as to allow her guilty pleasure. She reached across for her cell and indulged herself one step further.

.

When bedtime came, Casey's mind was still a whirl of thoughts and all of them Derek-centric. Even the song in her mind as she drifted off into an uneasy sleep was a U2 song that they had both liked.

Derek came off the ice to cheering and shouting. He smirked at the back slapping and celebratory salutations and followed his team mates down to the locker room and the waiting press. He had played well tonight, probably the best he had ever played. He wanted to discuss his performance with the people that counted: his dad…and Casey. He would phone his dad later and relive the game slice by slice; Casey was another matter however.

Derek reached the corridor where the public were forbidden, and the press and any celebrities who had watched would wait. He passed a few people he sort of recognised: a politician, a minor talent show winner and so on. Each of them was sporting a piece of arm candy. As he passed one girl, she smiled seductively at him and threw out her hand for him to shake. Derek, still distracted, looked at it as though he was unsure what to do with it. The girl waved it again, and the mist cleared slightly as he realised he recognised her from the cover of some girl magazine of Casey's back when they were still spending time together. Derek smiled unwittingly at the errant thought of Casey which slipped through – again.

The girl misinterpreted the smile.

"Hi!" She said. "I'm Chloe."

Derek nodded but didn't shake her hand. His mind had moved on to the possibility that his performance tonight had been stellar enough that Casey would feel compelled to send him a congratulatory text. He smiled briefly in dismissal to "Chloe" and pushed his way into the locker room, heading straight for his cell phone.

Outside in the corridor, Chloe reeled from the brush off, glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, and then with a determined look on her face, she walked away.

There was no text from Casey, but several from the rest of the family. Derek pushed the disappointment to one side and set about getting changed. Some of the guys were going out afterwards, but Derek declined as usual. Going out with his team mates was something he always did with Casey and he still hadn't moved on from that. Instead, he went home.

He was chilling with a beer, having just spent half an hour on the phone to his father who apparently knew a lot more about ice hockey than Derek – in George's opinion. Marti had been home and was chirping in the background and Derek was in a good mood. He loved his family, and he loved how supportive they were.

If he had loved them any less he would not be alone right now.

Just as he was contemplating that fact, his cell phone buzzed.

You did good, Venturi.

Derek smiled and closed his eyes. Texts from Casey were brief and rare but they never failed to touch him; particularly when they were phrased in a way that reminded him of how much he had influenced her over the past ten years – and vice versa. He replied quickly, but in long hand, knowing how much she hated abbreviated English.

You should have been there. I still miss you. X

Casey woke the following morning with a tune already in her brain. She couldn't remember the words, but the melody nagged at her to the point where she got up and put the kitchen radio on to mask it. The action worked temporarily and she sat at her breakfast bar and switched on her phone, hopeful for a reply from Derek.

Moments, and one beep, later, she was still staring at the device. She wasn't sure what she expected him to say, maybe something neutral like "Thanks X". But his actual reply didn't sound like someone who had moved on and that was disturbing, because it gave her hope when she shouldn't have hope; hope that she wasn't the only infatuated one in their bizarre "relationship".

But it also made her despair because how was she supposed to move on and get over a single ill-advised "teenage" make out session when he admitted to still missing her? Of course, he could mean that he missed her as a friend, but she didn't think so.

Casey put her head in her hands and wrung her long hair in her fingers. She needed to get him out of her system and soon because this was Derek they were talking about and it wasn't good for her to be obsessing over him.

She lifted her head and smiled weakly at the momentary lapse into fifteen year old Casey. Being able to hate Derek the way she used to would help, but she didn't think that was possible anymore.

In fact, that was exactly what she needed – something that made him less of an ideal. She needed to find something about him that irritated her. The trouble was she already knew so much about him: all his plus points and the negative ones. She had seen him in every setting, in every condition in life…except the obvious. Casey tried not to think about the obvious…sex.

Sex was a bit of a sore subject for Casey, although as she had never had sex, she didn't mean that literally. There had been a time when she wondered why she was still a virgin at her age, but since she had begun to understand the place Derek had in her life, the reason for her abstinence became abundantly clear. He was always there distracting her, even when he was the other side of Canada. She had never relaxed around anyone enough to consider letting go – except Derek. The closest she had ever come to having sex was with him in his garden that night. If he had asked, she would have given – although she swore she would do everything in her power to keep the fact he was her first from him.

And there she was…her mind back in the garden and back in the Casey-Derek sexual relations rut. She cursed herself.

Maybe she was frustrated. Maybe she just needed to have sex. Maybe she should go out pick up some random guy in the street and jump him. She even stood up and walked to the window to look out. But, then her memories of Derek in the garden resurfaced and she knew that for now at least, giving it up for anyone other than Derek was impossible, because she needed to trust her partner, and when it came to the important things in life, the only person she trusted with something like this was Derek.

She wondered if he thought about her and sex the way she did – and smiled as she realised Derek had probably always thought about her and sex. He was Derek. He thought about everyone and sex – and she began to realise why her presence in his life had been such a trial to him. From that realisation came a flood of affection, love even, because despite the attraction which he could not act on, he had kept her within arms' reach for ten years.

He had told her he needed her. She had told him she wanted him. But she needed him too. From his text she thought maybe he still felt the same, and she knew that for her own part, she certainly did.

As evening approached, the volume of the annoying tune in her head grew louder and she started to realise why she couldn't place it. The song had two forms, and she was humming the cover. Pouring herself an uncharacteristically large glass of wine, Casey crossed her living room to her iPod dock, slid the device back where it belonged, and selected a track. In seconds, the unmistakable sounds of U2 filled her living room. Not a romantic track at all, which made her chuckle, but the sentiment was still there. As she listened to the words she was transported back to the scented garden of her memories and then forward to the coffee house with Derek.

Two options he had given; and they had picked the second. The music playing now suggested the first.

Casey emptied her glass and reached for the wine bottle.

Derek wasn't sure if the times that he wasn't touring were a good thing or not. At least at home he wasn't accosted on a daily basis by groupies in hotel corridors. Of course the general public were kept out of the players' areas, but groupies coming in forms other than the general public. One groupie in particular was becoming particularly persistent – and irritating.

The problem with being home was that it was full of reminders. The garden may well be under several feet of snow, but he had to eat, and the kitchen was still Casey-territory with its organisation, and its deep freeze full of Casey food. Four months down the line, she might not cook in the room anymore, but once a month a delivery of plastic tubs arrived by courier. His new housekeeper had frowned and asked what to do with them, and Derek had looked at her in disbelief.

"What do you normally do with a month's worth of cooked food in freezer tubs?" He had asked. "Stick them in the freezer. Oh, and change the on-line grocery order. I won't need as much stuff anymore if this delivery is going to be regular."

It was.

Casey had found a way to interfere in his daily life as he knew (and hoped) she would.

The day after the best performance of his career – and Casey's congratulatory text – Derek was home. It was night time and late, although with the winter had come the long nights so it had been dark for a while. Derek as a twenty-something adult was more contemplative than his fifteen year old counterpart, and he guessed that was due in no small part to Casey. Like a married man, he had for some time appreciated the concept of a night in; although, these days they were less healthy.

Tonight he finished up in his private gym and headed upstairs for a shower and a change of clothes. On the way, he grabbed a glass and a bottle of Jack Daniels – though he knew he shouldn't after exercising, and took both with him. Ten minutes later, showered and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he stood at the bedroom window, glass in hand, looking down on the blanket of snow covering Casey's garden. Casey would no doubt grab a pen and start eulogising on the contrast between the warmth of the summer evening they spent there and the cold dampness of the evening now they were apart. Derek called himself a sap and downed the rest of the glass.

He made himself a sandwich because Casey was already on his mind too much for him to be able to stomach warming up one of her meals tonight, and withdrew to his den, taking the sandwich and the bottle with him. Casey would say this was unhealthy, but he'd been in the gym most of the afternoon without a break, and he thought that wasn't particularly good for him either. Besides, she wasn't here so what she didn't know and all that. Derek settled in to watch some lame slot-filler of a bail-jumper documentary.

The bottle's contents had decreased significantly before long. He hadn't planned on having a heavy night, but he guessed that his perception of what was right or wrong had changed when he decided to drink JD on just a sandwich. He guessed it was a good thing he was at home and out of trouble.

A Steven Segal docu-farce came on with the lead character looking like TJ Hooker – corset and all, but Derek was too lethargic to care. He felt himself slipping into an almost Homer-like existence – and not the Homer that would impress Casey.

About two hours into his Duff-like wallowing, the doorbell rang. Derek groaned and picked up the cordless entry phone.

"What?" he barked into it. And then repeated the question when he realised he hadn't pressed the required button.

"It's me." A voice said quietly. Derek's eyes widened and he was off the sofa and through the door faster than you could say "Bad foreboding, foreshadowing and recipe for disaster."

He ripped open the front door so fast the door knocker rattled, his JD-addled vision just registering the tail lights of the cab as it made its way down his drive. His visitor was leaning up against the side of the house, a small suitcase in her hand. She didn't have a coat on, and there was something wrong with the way her eyes were focussing.

"Jesus Casey! It's freezing! You'll catch your death!"

She giggled and hiccupped. "Hi Mom!" She said and stumbled her way into his hall-way. Derek closed the door and turned to face her.

"What's going on Casey?" He asked, trying to focus his drunken mind enough to comprehend what she was doing here.

"I needed to see you." She stated, and he was aware enough to know there was something wrong with the way she was speaking.

"Are you drunk?" his tone was one of disbelief. Casey grinned broadly.

"I bloody hope so. I can't do this sober."

"Do what?" He prompted. He had a bad feeling about this.

She giggled again, and dropping her suitcase, stepped towards him. Her arms slid around his waist and her body pressed against his.

"Sleep with you, Derek." She said, her voice suddenly morphing into something she hoped sounded seductive. "I want a one night stand."

AN: U2 song = Pride (In the Name of love). The cover I am talking about is the Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge. Appropriate to have a love song with a large elephant in the room…

So, what will Derek's reaction be?