AN: I know it's been….a while but at long last here's Chapter Eight. I recently saw the Life With Derek movie and it seems to have refueled the fire. Hopefully it can keep it going!

Diclaimer: Nope, I still don't own it

Chapter Eight – The Choices We Make

July 17th

It was Monday and Casey was miserable. She'd arrived at work at precisely 9am, still on cloud nine. She'd miraculously had the whole weekend off and on Saturday, Brandon had arrived on her doorstep at eight in the morning with coffee, assorted freshly baked bagels and cream cheese, fish food, and a brand new fish bowl complete with castle, shiny stones for the bottom and a small pump to make Goldfish Brandon a happy camper. They spent the morning eating the bagels and watching cartoons before Casey cleared a space on her dresser for Goldfish Brandon's new home and the real Brandon set it up. Around noon Brandon had to leave which left Casey plenty of time to curl up on the couch and read, something she'd been neglecting to do in recent weeks. Sunday morning and afternoon had been spent catching up on e-mails and phone calls with Emily, Sam and Trevor and that evening had been spent on another romantic night out with Brandon.

Casey was positively glowing as she readied her register for another day at work. Her good mood lasted until 11am when the two girls, whom Casey had labeled the Barbie Twins in her head, arrived for their shift. As per usual, they went out of their way to walk up to her register only to pointedly ignore her as they continued on to the back to put away their personal belongings. Casey tried to fight it, but the urge to roll her eyes was too great and as she did so, she let out a sigh and turned her head back towards the front.

"Hey, don't let them bother you," said Brittany, a fellow cashier. Casey turned her attention to the blue-eyed redhead.

"They pretty much dislike everyone anyway," she continued. She gave a small knowing smile that Casey returned.

"Thanks. But don't worry, I stopped taking it personal a long time ago," Casey told her, "Especially since I've only ever exchanged like two sentences with them."

"Hey Casey," came a snide, sing-song voice behind them. Barbie Twin Number 1 walked up to the counter carrying a giant pile of fitting room discards with Barbie Twin 2 closely behind her carrying an equally large pile of clothing. They smiled malevolently as they unceremoniously dumped the clothes in a heap at Casey's feet.

"The fitting room doesn't seem to have been cleared out last night," Barbie Twin 1 announced, her voice artificially sweet. Her hair was bleached to within an inch of its life. Casey thought of her as Bleach Barbie.

"Yeah, we found these hidden in a changing stall. Normally we'd love to put them away but since it's getting busy and we're on Fitting Room duty, we just don't have the time," Barbie Twin 2 added gleefully. Her blonde locks extended from notably dark roots. She was Fake Barbie.

"Yeah, we're getting swamped," Bleach added. "So we took it upon ourselves to talk to the manager."

"And we asked if you could do it and she said yes," Fake finished the story.

Casey smiled tightly at them. She was pretty sure they had planned this and though she was surprised they had the combined brainpower to plan anything at all, she wasn't exactly surprised they had gone out of their way to mess with her.

"Of course I'll do it," she said cheerily. "Anything to help."

"Good," Fake replied. "Because once you're done with those, there are more."

"Plenty more," Bleach elaborated. "It seems all the back stalls are filled. That was just the first two rooms."

"Of course it was," said Brittany sarcastically from her register. The Barbie Twins swiveled their heads to glare at her, leaving Casey to duck to avoid having their hair whip her in the face. They turned back to Casey to toss a venomous "Later" at her before teetering away on their ridiculously high stilettos back towards the fitting room.

Casey groaned as she bent down and grabbed a handful of clothes to start re-hanging and re-folding.

"Casey, toss some over here. I'll help you," Brittany offered.

"Thanks, Brittany. I really mean that." She tossed over a few shirts and pairs of pants.

"It's no problem. Besides, given all the things they could have planned for you, this was pretty tame," she observed.

"True," Casey agreed. "It could have been worse."

And it got worse. The Barbie Twins had apparently gotten their hands on one of the stores' label guns and had run rampant through the piles of clothes they'd left stashed in the fitting rooms. Casey spent the rest of her shift taking care of the clothes left in the fitting room and explaining to confused (and many irate) customers why everything seemed to be priced wrong.

Casey struggled to force herself up the stairs of the front porch and make her way to the door. She was exhausted, irritated and just down right miserable. She wanted nothing more than to soak in the bathtub and call Brandon and let him make her feel all better. Maybe she'd even invite him over. She was in the midst of considering the merits of the idea as she dug out her house key and reached for the door knob when the door surprisingly swung open.

"Kendra!" she exclaimed, surprise obvious in her voice.

"Casey, hey!" Kendra returned. Casey looked at Kendra then over at Derek, who was looking rather uncomfortable just behind her. She focused back on Kendra who was suspiciously a tad flushed.

"I'm sorry," she stammered. "Kendra, umm…did I forget something? Did we have plans?"

"Oh, no. No. Ummm, actually I was just hanging out with Der-bear. We ran into each other the day and then he went with me to that party I told you about."

"Der-bear?" Casey mouthed discreetly to Derek. Derek had the decency to grimace in response.

"Anyway, we were just hanging out but now I'm going to be so late for work." Kendra turned to Derek and playfully jabbed him in the chest. "I told you I was going to be late."

Derek gave her an "aww shucks" face but quickly replaced it with an impassive look when he caught Casey looking.

"Well, I have to run," Kendra announced and gave Derek a quick peck on the lips. "I'll see you later Der."

"Case, we have to hang out again." She pulled her into a quick hug. "You have to update me on all things Brandon."

Kendra was in her car and backing out of the driveway before Casey or Derek even got the chance to reply. Casey followed Derek back to the living room and Derek noticed she was oddly quiet despite what had just happened.

Derek watched as she dropped her purse next to the couch before dropping herself onto the seat.

"Did I…miss something?" Casey finally asked. She noticed he swallowed hard before answering her.

"No. I don't think so." He stood suddenly and clapped his hands together. "Let's grab dinner! I'm buying!"

"Whoa! Hold on just a sec." She grabbed a hold of his shirt and dragged him back to his recliner. "Sit. Spill."

Derek let out an irritated sigh. "See? This is why us being friends is stupid. I hate having to tell you things."

Casey released an unladylike snort. "Derek, really? How mature! Just spill already. I know something's up."

"You're making a bigger deal out of this than it really is."

"Really? Try me."

"There's nothing to tell. We ran into each other at the mall the other day. She mentioned the party. I went. We had a good time so we hung again today. End of story. There. Happy?" He added in a sarcastic smile for good measure.

"Thrilled," Casey replied, her own sarcastic smile firmly in place.

"I'm reconsidering this whole friendship thing."

"So, just hanging out, huh?" she pressed.

"Just hanging out with another female 'friend.'"

"Really, Der-bear? Are you sure? Cuz last time I checked, I didn't kiss you when I told you goodbye this morning." Casey internally winced at how jealous sounding that last part came out. Why was this such a big deal to her? Wasn't she just planning on inviting Brandon over? Why did it matter that Derek had Kendra here? But Casey didn't have time to continue mulling the questions over in her head because she suddenly got her answer.

"Okay fine! We decided to try going out again." Derek didn't understand why he'd been so reluctant to tell her or why, now that he had, he felt kind of horrible about it. Like he was doing something wrong.

"Case?" Derek called out when his announcement got no response.

The sound of his voice seemed to shake her out of her shock. Though, she wondered why it was such a surprise when she saw her kiss him just ten minutes ago. She stood suddenly.

"I have to take a shower," she said decidedly as she took a few steps towards the stairs.

"Wait, Casey, what about dinner?" Derek called after her.

"Sorry, I can't. Ummm…I actually have plans with Brandon. I totally forgot. I'll talk to you later," she said as she practically ran up the stairs. She quickly shut the door behind her and slid slowly to the ground. What just happened? she asked herself. Casey forced herself to breathe. Something wasn't right. The feeling of her stomach dropping the moment she saw Kendra open the door. The tightness in her chest she felt the moment Derek admitted he was seeing her again. The sheer panic and urge to run to her room the moment she realized Derek might know what she was feeling.

And what was she feeling? Casey felt something wet run down her face. She quickly reached up to catch it and in that moment the truth hit her. The truth she'd been hiding from herself for quite some time now. She knew exactly what was happening.

"Oh no," she whispered into the emptiness of her room. She was falling for Derek. She pulled herself up and quickly reached for the phone. She had to fix this.

Fast.

It took Derek exactly one minute to realize he should probably go after Casey and talk to her. He knew he was no genius but even he could figure out that things between him and Casey were getting complicated. More complicated than he was prepared to deal with. And because he was jealous and petty, he had just made it more complicated by adding Kendra into the mix.

He let out a groan as he forced himself to get up. This was exactly why he went out with girls like Kendra instead of girls like Casey. Hell, this was why any girls he was even remotely friends with before Casey were all like Kendra. With girls like Kendra, it was easy. It was always easy. He didn't have to try very hard to make them happy or analyze anything too much to know what they were thinking. They weren't necessarily stupid, just easy to deal with. And he liked that. The fewer complications in his life the better.

But then there was Casey. And with Casey, things were always complicated. And lately, it just seemed to be getting worse. Derek reluctantly trudged up the stairs and paused hesitantly at her door.

"Hey, Case?" He waited for an answer then considered knocking on the door. He lifted a hand then paused when he realized he could hear her talking to someone. He figured it was Emily or Sally and was prepared to interrupt anyway when he heard her say a name that brought his blood to an immediate boil. Brandon.

He quickly pressed his ear to the door and strained to hear what she was saying.

"Hey Brandon, it's Casey…..I'm good, you? ….Hey, I was wondering if you were free tonight? Want to grab dinner? Maybe a movie? ...Sounds good, I'll see you in an hour."

She'd lied to him. Derek wasn't so concerned about the lying part. With much coaxing and coaching from him, she'd been doing it more lately. What hurt was that she'd done it to get away from him and that she'd actually done it pretty well. Not that he'd believed her. But he'd wanted to.

Derek pushed away from the door and quickly moved to his own room, slamming the door behind him. He didn't feel like talking to her anymore.

July 19th

A ringing phone woke Casey up from her nap. She'd had the day off and started it with a breakfast picnic with Brandon followed by a trip to the museum, lunch prepared at his house, and a stroll in the park. By three in the afternoon, Casey was a little tired and Brandon had a football game planned with some of his old friends.

Casey reached blindly for the phone, pressed talk and was surprised to hear the dial tone. She shook her head clear of sleep and realized it was her cell phone ringing. She spotted it on her night stand and looked at the caller ID display.

"Hey, Sally," she greeted the caller.

"Casey! I'm so glad I caught you," Sally replied.

"Me too, I haven't had a chance to talk to you much lately."

"Oh I know. I'm so sorry about last time. I was at this party and it was so loud I couldn't hear a word you were saying."

"Don't worry about it," Casey assured her. "It wasn't a big deal."

"No?" Sally asked. There was an added lilt in her voice. "Derek tells me you met a boy."

"What? He told you that?" Casey was wide awake now.

"Was he wrong?" Sally had a way of asking questions that made you want to answer them. Not for the first time, Casey noticed that Sally had quite a lot in common with Derek.

"No, I did meet someone."

"But you don't like him?"

"No!"

"No?"

"No. I mean, no you're wrong. I do like him. A lot actually. That's the problem," Casey admitted.

"Because you like someone else more." This time, it wasn't a question.

"How did you know that?" Casey asked.

"It's a gift….so, when are you going to tell Derek you like him?"

"What? Sally, I don't like Derek," Casey rushes out.

"Of course you do. Now, do you want to spend the next hour denying it or can we get down to the good parts already?"

And just like that, Casey spent the next ninety minutes spilling her heart out to Derek's ex-girlfriend.

"I'm sorry, Casey," Sally told her sadly. "I can't tell you what to do. Brandon sounds like a really amazing guy. But, and I might be biased here, Derek really was a great boyfriend."

"This must be so weird for you."

"Not any weirder than it must be for you. Oh, gosh, I have to go. Look, call me anytime you need to talk and you have to promise to let me know what happens, okay?"

"Of course, I'll tell you all about it." Casey paused. "You know, once I decide what to do."

"I'm sure you'll make the right choice. Oh, and please don't tell Derek I told you about Ian. He made me promise not to say anything. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Sure, I'll talk to you later. Bye."

Casey hung up and rolled over onto her back to stare at the ceiling. "This is a disaster."

"What's a disaster?"

Casey let out a gasp and struggled to sit up. "Derek?"

"Expecting someone else?" He gave a small smirk as he leaned against the doorframe. She hadn't even realized he'd opened the door. Worried about how much, if anything, he'd overheard, she decided to simply ask him.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"I just opened the door."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Why? Were you talking about me?" Derek narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

Casey made sure he saw her roll her eyes. "Please, I have better things to do than talk about you."

"So, I was going to get some ice cream. Want to come with?" he asked, changing the topic entirely. Casey took in his appearance. His hands were fidgeting nervously in his pockets while his face gave off that nonchalant, I could care less expression, she knew him well enough to know every once in a while when he was faking. Today, he was faking. He was giving her an out on their….well, she wasn't exactly sure what last night was. It was like a fight, just without the actual fighting. Casey came to a decision in that moment. She was going to put her ridiculous crush on Derek to the side and just wait until it went away. She had Brandon and Derek had Kendra and that was that.

"Sure. Let me grab me grab my purse and I'll meet you downstairs?" She put on what she hoped passed for a happy grin on her face and catches him waver for exactly a moment before a similar smile on his face.

"Cool, see you in a bit."

She held her position on the bed until she heard his footsteps on the stairs before she allowed herself to fall onto her back and exhaled. She wondered briefly how long she'd have to fight the urge to cry every time she thought about him giving that smile to another person.

"Hey, what flavor did you get again?" Derek asked her as they strolled down the emptying streets. It was warm out but since it was getting closer to eight on a Wednesday night, not much was going and people were mostly heading home. Casey had suggested they take a walk since it was nice out and since she had a feeling Derek had something on his chest he wanted to talk about. Thankfully, she suspected it had nothing to do with last night and everything to do with what Sally had told her on the phone.

"Chocolate and caramel. You?" She kept her tone even and figured he'd eventually get around to telling her.

"I think this is pistachio." He took another lick of his ice cream and let her see him grimace. "I didn't read the label and saw green and assumed it was mint chip."

"Too bad you don't like pistachio, huh?" Derek threw her a look that said he knew she was enjoying his misery. So much had changed between them that it was a relief to know that some things never would.

Casey took a slow, deliberate lick of her ice cream. She made sure he saw just how much she enjoyed the smooth, chocolatey, caramely flavor.

"Mmmm, this is delicious. I love how the chocolate blends in perfectly with the taste of caramel. There are even little caramel swirls," Casey explained. She had to fight to keep the smirk off her face.

"You know what? That's it." Derek stopped in his tracks and pulled her off to the side.

"Derek, what are you doing?" Before Casey could finish protesting, Derek had yanked her ice cream cone out of her hand and had practically shoved his at her before taking off in a sprint.

"DER-EK! Get back here!"

It took Casey two and a half blocks to catch up to him but by then her ice cream was long gone and Derek couldn't stop laughing.

"Hahahahha! You should have seen your face. Priceless!" Derek was doubled over and Casey was seething.

"Ha ha. Very funny. I can't believe how immature you are."

"Aww, come on. Lighten up, Space Case. It's just ice cream," he told her as he straightened up and pulled himself together.

"Ice cream that I wanted to eat. And…and you're the one who invited me!"

"You can eat that one." He gestured to the now crushed cone she was holding in her hand. Pistachio ice cream was melting and was now starting to drip onto her fingers and palm. "You might want to eat it fast too cuz it's starting to melt."

"You eat it!" She held out the offending cone to him.

"Casey, I just had one. I'm not a pig." He spotted the rather large, green, stain on her light yellow t-shirt. "But apparently one of us is. Gosh, Case, did you get any in your mouth?"

Casey followed his gaze to the stain on her new shirt. And for the first time in a while, she saw red. "I'm going to kill you!"

Casey lunged, ice cream cone first at Derek's mid section. He hadn't anticipated her to move so quickly so she landed a clear shot at his gut, smearing a large glop of ice cream all over the front of his shirt.

"I'm so going to get you for that," he warned her as he scooped up some ice cream from his shirt and aimed. She dodged his first attack but the second landed squarely on the back of her hair.

"Derek, that's my hair," she screeched as she hurled what remained of the cone in her hand and hit him on the side of the face. He grabbed one of her arms as the other reached up to smear the ice cream all over the rest of his right cheek.

"Casey, stop!" He put as much venom into the command as he could but he failed to keep out the amusement.

"Never. You stop," she returned.

"Why should I? I'm winning."

"You wish. I'm not the one with ice cream on my face." She flashed him a superior grin.

"Oh yeah?" he challenged and before she figured out his intention, he was rubbing his wet, cold, sticky face all over her left cheek.

"Eww! Oh my God, stop! Derek! Ahhhh, get off me. Derek! DEREK! DER-REK!"

But even as she struggled and screamed at him to stop, Casey had to admit it was nice pretending everything between them was back to normal. Even if it was just pretend.

They were sitting on a bench in front of a store that sold antique gowns and costume jewelry. The store had closed over an hour ago but the lights in front of the store were on. The few remaining people that passed by gave them a wide berth. Normally Casey would be offended but given the fact that they were covered in ice cream, looked visibly sticky, their hair was a mess, and there were large green stains all over their clothing, Casey couldn't fault them.

"I hope you know you're walking home. There's no way you're getting in The Prince like that," Derek declared.

"You're worse than I am. I so won."

"In your dreams, Spacey." Casey let them sit in silence a few minutes more before she decided it was time to prod him along.

"So, are you going to tell me any time soon?"

"Tell you?" His voice took on a strangely higher pitch than normal.

"Yeah cuz we can't sit out here all night."

Derek was surprised. Usually Casey could beat around the bush all day. He swallowed hard.

"Case, I don't know." Derek struggled hard to find the right words. "I was not expecting this so I don't really know how I feel about it all."

"It's okay, Derek. No one could have seen that coming," she told him honestly.

"I just…you know, I just don't know what to say. I don't know what we should do. Probably nothing but…that doesn't seem right either."

"Derek, of course we can't do 'nothing.' We have to deal with this."

Derek groaned. "I knew you were going to say that."

"Of course I'm saying that. Ignoring the problem won't fix it."

"But Casey, seriously how would we even fix it?"

"There are lots of ways to fix it."

"Yeah? What about Brandon? Or Kendra?"

"What do you mean? Why would Brandon have a problem with it? Or Kendra? She wouldn't want you to fail."

"She wouldn't want me to fail?" he parroted.

"Of course not. You need those classes to graduate. She wouldn't stand in the way of that. And for that matter, why would Brandon?"

"Wait…what? What are you talking about?"

"I'm offering to tutor you? Because Sally told me Ian quit?" She looked at him like he was crazy. "Why? What are you talking about?"

"Ummm…same." He was looking anywhere but at her and she quickly realized exactly what he'd been talking about. This was the moment, Casey thought. She could force the issue and possibly ruin their relationship, her relationship with Brandon, and her relationship with Kendra (whose friendship, she had to admit, she was really starting to care about). Or she could give him an out like he'd done just a couple hours ago.

Casey decided she had to stick with the decision she'd made earlier. She and Derek were finally getting along. Why ruin it now with something that could never possibly last? Right?

"So, why didn't you tell me Ian quit?"

"Oh, umm…I don't know." Casey noted the surprise in his voice. "I figured it was my problem, I'd deal with."

"Derek, we're friends now, right?" She forced herself to add the next part as a reminder for the both of them. "Plus you're my stepbrother. Of course I want to help you."

"Right. I'm your stepbrother." For the thousandth time that day, Derek found himself wondering why things with Casey had to be so difficult.

I know! These chapters are getting ridiculously long. And I know Derek's summer classes are taking way longer than normal but I've decided I'm allowed some artistic license with their length since A) It's important to the story and B) They're almost over!

As always reviews are greatly appreciated!

~ SugarRune