To Charlottetown
Chapter 23: Charlottetown

A/N: Wow! Wow, wow wow! What can I say? The last chapter is finally here guys and I just really want to thank you all, from the bottom, top and middle of my heart, for reviewing and liking this story. I can't believe it's almost been two years since I first started it! Wow! I have really changed as a writer and person since then. I can't believe this story is finally finishing.

I am sooo sorry for how late this is. I broke my promise of having it out by September 2009! Well, it's 2010 now and haha.. well…. Let's just read on then, shall we?

WARNING: some swears! Sorry, I just didn't think the writing would have the same emotion otherwise… ;P

That night Casey didn't sleep well.

It wasn't just what happened with Derek, either, even though that held up a good portion of her thinking space. No, Mother Nature decided the McDonald-Venturi's didn't go through enough and made it start storming in the middle of the night.

The fact that she was sleeping in a strange room, in a strange place, with it thundering outside was enough to equal insomnia.

She looked over at Marti and Lizzie, both curled up on the queen-sized bed. She was glad they were sleeping soundly, but the pains in her back from sleeping on the half-broken couch futon in their room snapped any tiredness she had from her body.

With a groan she got up and stretched. Her whole body ached, and not just from the crappy bed. She felt physically weak from Derek's words.

"Nothing," she murmured. That word had repeated in her mind over and over again until it mashed and lost all meaning. But she could still see his face, still see how happy and relieved he looked while he said that.

Was she really nothing to him? Did all that happen really mean nothing to him?

She felt tears prickle in her eyes, because deep down she knew she still liked him. Could she ever get over it? Get over how easily he threw the idea of 'them' away?

Casey sucked in a deep breath and wandered out into the hallway, fumbling around, tripping over the unfamiliar hallway until she reached the kitchen.

But what exactly did she want? This was Derek. As close as they had gotten, he would never throw everything away to see if they could work. And what about Mom, and George? The family? How would they react?

Casey bent and looked into the fridge. One of the wonderful packages that came with this Charlottetown deal was that the fridge came fully loaded with snacks. Granted, they were a few days late…

She picked up a piece of cheese and sniffed it.

Nah, it wasn't that rotten. She cut a few pieces then grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and started slicing that. Cooking – or doing anything that required concentration, really – always took her mind off her problems, no matter how short it lasted.

"Apples and cheese?" someone said. Startled, she looked up and felt a pang of some sort of emotion hit her in the chest. It wasn't a good kind of "emotion." It hurt.

"It's nutritious," Casey said, hurriedly looking down and quickening her slicing.

"No, it's disgusting," Derek replied. She couldn't see him but she knew he was leaning on the counter, watching her. How could his eye burn holes into the back of her head like that?

Casey didn't know what to say, so the room lapsed into an uncomfortable, awkward silence. The only noise was made by the knife hitting the cutting board.

With a start Casey looked out the kitchen window and realized it wasn't storming anymore. With a quick glance at the clock saying it was 6 am, Casey almost smiled at how beautiful the morning was. The sun had yet to peak out, but the outside world was bathed in a green-blue light.

"Casey…," Derek murmured. She didn't acknowledge him but her shoulders hunched forward. "Casey, look, okay? What I said back there… I wasn't…," he stopped and she spun to face him.

"You weren't what? Hmm? Trying to make things awkward? Trying to make things between us uncomfortable? What weren't you doing, Derek?" He shot her a look.

"I wasn't trying to make you hate me."

"I don't hate you," Casey said, then shook her head. "Do you want some? I'm not hungry anymore." She gestured to the cheese and apple slices.

"Casey, just stop and listen, okay? You know I'm not good with these kinds of things."

"Fine, I'm listening. Now what do you want?" He sucked in a deep breath and seemed to be struggling with words. His mouth moved up and down and his lips squished together, but after a few minutes of complete silence, he finally said, "I want you to take a walk with me."

Casey was dumbfounded. Before she could say anything along the lines of, "what the hell?!" Derek said, "Just… do it, please?"

Since he was asking nicely, how could she resist?

Casey didn't know her way around Charlottetown – how could she, she had never been here before? So the whole time she and Derek were walking down the drive she was making a mental map. A few of the early-rising Charlottetown inhabitants greeted them warmly when they passed through a little market.

"Casey. I want you to be straight-up with me."

"Okay…?"

"This is going to be the only time I ask about your emotions but… how do you feel when you're around me? What do you feel?"

Casey bit down on her tongue. Tell the truth and be mortally embarrassed or lie and maybe miss out on something big?

"I… I… don't know. You make me so angry I just want to strangle you, but when I'm around you its like…," she paused, choosing her words carefully, trying not to sound cheesy. "It's like I feel alive, I don't know. I think I might – " she bit the sentence off, looking away, than snuck a glance at Derek. He was running a hand tiredly over his face and inhaling deeply.

"Derek?"

"That's just real great, Casey, isn't it?" he said. His words had a sharp and bitter edge to them.

"What… what—?"

"Just real fucking great. See, what we went through trying to get here? I wish I could forget it. I wish we never went past hating each other, because now we're stuck here like this, asking ourselves where the hell we go from here."

"If that's how you feel –,"

"No, let me finish. Casey, you are the most obnoxious girl I have ever met, and sometimes I wish I never even met you. Sometimes I wish our parents never met. Sometimes I wish you still lived in Toronto and had your own little life, and I had my own. Sometimes I just really hate you."

Ouch. She looked away, feeling tears form in her eyes again.

"Look at me, Casey." He stopped and put a hand under her chin, turning her face until he could see her eyes. Then his lips turned up in the tiniest of smiles.

"But I didn't realize why until just recently. Why did I have so much hate for this girl?" She tried not to blink as he stared at her, knowing that if she did the tears would start pouring.

"It's because of the way she makes me feel; the way she makes me realize things, the way she has a patience that no one else has around me. I thought I hated you, and I thought that was that. Was I ever fucking wrong." He smiled and Casey felt her heart leap into her throat. She tried not to make too much sense of what he was saying, in case her conclusions were wrong.

He put both of his hands on either side of her face.

"Casey, I'm in love with you."

Something let go inside of her and she let out some sort of gasping-laughing noise. She hadn't realized until just then that their bodies were touching and how perfectly amazing it felt to feel his body against hers, without the hate or confusion.

She reached up and cupped her head in her hands, leaning forward until her forehead touched his shoulder. His hands fell from her face to her arms.

"You don't know how happy I am to here that. I was going through torture trying to figure you out, trying to figure us out. I couldn't even think, or sleep, or eat…," his hands slipped around her wrist and pulled them away from her face. "And I didn't know how long this was going to last, or whether or not –,"

"Casey?"

"Y-yeah?"

"Shut-up, I'm trying to be romantic." Casey managed to smile before Derek's hand wove around to the back of her neck, bringing their faces closer and closer until his lips, finally, after so long, met hers.

Something erupted inside of Casey and she grabbed the front of his shirt, only aware she was crying when the tears dripped off her chin and landed on her arm.

She pulled away. "I'm sorry, I'm crying, ruining the moment…,"

"I'm fine with your tears… just this one time," Derek said, pulling her against him into a hug.

Standing in the middle of a road in an unfamiliar place can be scary, but when you're in the arms of someone you love, the feeling you get makes you want to take on the world, it makes you invincible. What Casey felt at that moment was exactly that.

"So, what are we?" Casey asked. Derek linked his pinky finger with hers, lifting his shoulders up in a shrug.

"We're… something."

"We've always been 'something.' We have never, ever, been normal."

"And let's promise we won't ever be that… normal. Normal is for losers." Casey smiled, shaking her head. Their Charlottetown house came into view and she inhaled.

"What do we tell our parents?" Casey asked.

"Do you have to ruin the moment with a question like that?" he said. Casey rolled her eyes, smacking him in the chest.

"We'll have to talk about it sometime."

"That 'sometime' isn't now."

"Fine."

"Fine," he mimicked, then held the front door open for her. It was a brief chivalrous moment, and Casey knew there were to be few to come, but for some reason she was totally okay with that.

As they headed around to their bedrooms, they bumped right into Lizzie and Edwin.

"I knew it," Lizzie said, pointing an accusing finger at their joined hands. Derek and Casey immediately separated, looking flustered.

"It's – it's nothing! Just uh…,"

"Quite stuttering, Case, we've always known this was going to happen. Ain't that right, Ed?"

"Yep," he said, "In fact, we were taking bets on when exactly you two would become an item."

"We're not 'an item,'" Derek snapped, grabbing the front of Edwin's shirt.

"Chillax, bro, I won't tell the parents. But uh…," he glanced at Lizzie briefly, smirking. "Someone's going to have to drop the bomb to them before they discover all the notes we have on you guys."

"There are notes?!?" Casey gasped.

"Oh, don't be acting all surprised. It was pretty obvious from the start that uh… Derek… why are you staring at me like that?"

"Like what? That I'm gonna murder you?"

"Yeah."

"Because maybe I'm about to."

"Ha-ha… ha…? Der—?"

"You better run," Derek said, chasing Edwin down the hallway. Casey laughed and shook her head.

So maybe some things changed, and maybe some things didn't, but Casey knew that, at least at that moment, she was perfectly fine being in the McDonald-Venturi household.

It was probably the only time in history that Casey didn't feel the need to change one thing about her life.

At least at that moment, anyway.

Well, this is the part where I get all sappy. This story has been on-going for a very important part of my life (high school!) and I can't believe it's finally finished. I started it when I was in grade 9, and I'm in grade 11 now. I just… wow! Haha, pretty speechless right now.

With the end of this story comes the end of my dabble into the Dasey fandom (for the most part.) I'll probably be around Dasey Nation when the movie comes out, but other then that… I guess this is the end of me and Dasey.

Again, I just want to thank each and every one of you – which I will! I know I haven't always review-replied, but since this is THE END of fandom for me, I will reply to EACH review I get (any questions? Ask away! I'll answer them.)

Even if you're reading this now and have no intention of leaving a review, I just want to thank you for reading my words and taking the time to enjoy it. That's all a writer could ever ask for.

Haha, I guess this author's note is too long. Thanks for reading, and have all the best you wonderful people deserve. Seriously, you guys deserve the world.

- Veronica.