Chapter Text
Her phone buzzes. She wants to ignore it, but her little sister’s face is looking up at her from the screen. She looks at it for a moment, at Lizzie’s shy smile.
And then she snaps out of it. Chemistry can wait.
“Hey, Lizard,” she greets.
Lizzie doesn’t say anything, but she can hear her breathing, fast, hard.
“It’s okay, Liz, try to slow your breathing down, try to c-” What is she going to do, tell her to calm down? She hates to be told to calm down!
It doesn’t help. Lizzie makes a strangled sound and the next thing she hears is Edwin’s voice.
“Casey.” That’s all he can manage, voice so full of emotion that Casey doesn’t think. She keeps the phone pressed to her ear and pulls a sweatshirt over her head. Where is Derek? It’s Tuesday afternoon–probably prepping for hockey practice, maybe doing a half-ass job on some homework before warmups start so his evening can stay open for whatever party or whatever date he’s got lined up.
“Ed? Come on, Ed, talk to me,” she coaxes.
The sound of a baby, screaming. Simon. He’s teething, maybe, or hungry. Or has a soiled nappy.
“ Casey –” Again, the desperation in his voice, the pleading, like he’s drowning.
There’s a deep voice in the background. “It’s all right, kiddo, just–put your head down, close your eyes, breathe in slow, okay?”
“C-C-Casey?” Edwin’s voice is beginning to shake, as if he’s been out in the Canadian winter in just a t-shirt and jeans.
She runs out of her dorm room in flipflops, a sweatshirt, and shorts.
“I’m coming, Ed. Derek and I are coming, just hold on, okay?”
Derek’s in the locker room. It smells of old sweat and cologne barely one step up from the Axe body spray the boys had been so fond of in high school. The rest of the team’s in there too. Some of them, Casey notes absently, are in the middle of dressing. She is currently seeing more penises than the average urologist.
One of them shrieks and covers himself up. “Girl!” he warns, so his teammates can protect their modesty.
“Not a girl,” Derek corrects. “Casey.” He’s got a smug little smile on his face, the one he gets where he implies she’s an alien, or repulsive, or in a different category altogether from that species he so loves– woman .
The look drops off his face as he takes in the sight of her. Bizarrely, she thinks of the party in Toronto, how he had looked in the moment before she had told him about Truman and Vicki. Serious, focused, determined.
Her heart is thudding, from having run over here, from concern. “We need to go home. Something–something’s wrong.”
Derek stands, and he doesn’t waste time asking questions, just starts systematically unlacing his skates, stripping off his padding. It isn’t until he yanks down his pants that Casey processes, flushing.
“Give me the keys to the Prince–I’ll bring the car up.”
He throws the keys at her, and she catches them in a rare moment of almost-athleticism.
“Ed?” The line is still open, but she doesn’t know if he’s still there.
“Ed–Edwin Venturi, if you’re there, give the phone to an adult,” she orders. Her heart is beating out of her chest, and she’s not letting herself think of the worst-case scenarios.
Simon is still crying in the background, and the sound grates at her already fraying nerves.
Why did she have to go and pick Queens ? She should have stayed local. If she had, she could’ve already been at the house, she could have the kids in her arms, she could be holding Simon, calling Mom and George.
Mom and George, who hadn’t been part of this phone call.
If it had been something small–Lizzie would have called her to rant, maybe Edwin would have piped in every now and then to give his own opinion about the situation. Or Ed would have called Derek for advice, reluctantly, because who else could he ask? But–both of them are upset. Not angry, the way Edwin might be if Lizzie got her heart broken by some jerk. But upset . Not in the way of children who got in a fight, but in the way of children who can’t put it into words.
She finds the Prince and pulls to the front of the gym, breath coming faster. She doesn’t even realize she’s been hyperventilating until Derek opens the driver’s side door. She looks up at him blankly, then nods.
“Yeah, good idea,” she mutters, and she gets into the passenger side of the car.
“Ed? Ed, sweetheart, give the phone to an adult, okay? It’s okay, we’re on our way, just let me talk to Mom or George.” She’s never called Edwin sweetheart before. She probably never will again, but she’s practically begging.
“Put it on speaker,” Derek orders.
She doesn’t take orders from Derek Venturi, but she does exactly what he asks her to do.
“Ed? Ed, it’s Derek. Talk to me, man. Casey’s freaking out, you gotta tell us something.”
A man’s voice. Not George’s. A stranger’s voice, on the phone.
“Am I speaking with…” A pause. Lizzie’s voice in the background, choking out Derek’s name. “Derek? And Casey?”
“Derek Venturi and Casey McDonald,” Casey confirms. He’s glad she’s here, that she’s got that authority in her voice, like there’s nothing this world can throw at her that she can’t handle. “With whom am I speaking?”
“My name is Officer Jack Neville. I–”
Casey should know better, but she interrupts him. “Officer, I can only apologize. Edwin and Lizzie are usually very responsible children, but with their brother and I moving away to college, I know there’s been some stress around adjusting to the new family dynamic at home–”
“No, ma’am,” The officer says firmly. “Your brother and sister aren’t in trouble. I’m so sorry to tell you this over the phone, but there’s been an accident.”
Derek’s startled eyes meet hers, long enough that she whispers to him to pay attention to the road.
“Who?” Derek’s voice asks, sharply. “Marti, my sister, is she–”
“She wasn’t in the car,” the officer says, careful. “We only recovered two victims.”
“I’m gonna throw up,” Casey whispers, and when Derek looks at her, she’s pale as a ghost. He probably doesn’t look much better.
“What–what do you mean, victims? Is everyone okay?” Derek asks, “my dad –” He chokes on the word.
“My mom,” Casey whispers. She clears her throat. “Nora McDonald and George Venturi,” she says bravely. “What’s their status?”
“I don’t know. We got them out of the car and turned them over to EMS, I can find out the information for the hospital and get it to you–”
A lead weight settles in Derek’s stomach. Hockey , he thinks. He’d been about to practice hockey, about to go out onto the ice and skate , feel weightless in the way that he never did anywhere else.
Hockey and now hospital. Hockey. Hospital. Hockey. Hospital. Hockspital. He almost wants to laugh, and he knows it’s because his brain can’t wrap itself around this situation. It’s like he’s detached from his body. His hands on the wheel look like they belong to someone else, but they move when his brain tells them to.
“Please tell the children we’re on our way home,” Casey says. There’s iron in her, or steel. Something in the core of her that can take charge when Derek wants to curl up into a ball and wait for it to be over. “And-and contact Mrs. Davis, next door. Ask her to watch them for a little while. Our brother, Simon, he’s still a baby, Edwin and Lizzie aren’t equipped to watch him, not right now. And where’s Marti?”
The car jerks. Derek hadn’t meant to do it, but it just happens, when he thinks about his baby sister hearing the news. Her daddy and Nora, who she loved more than the stranger who’d birthed her.
“I will find that out for you, Miss McDonald,” the officer says. He’s trying. Officer Stone or Jackson or whatever the hell his name is.
She pauses. “Can you stay with them until we get there?”
“That’s not really–”
“They’re just kids ,” she says in a voice so soft Derek wants to lay down and die. “They’re just–they’re just kids, Officer. Please. Stay with them. We’ll be there in a little over three hours, we’re driving over from Queens College.”
“Okay,” the officer agrees, “I’ll stay with them until you get here.”
“Thank you.” Her voice is thick with gratitude. “Just–thank you.”
“Drive safe, miss.” The officer says, and Casey hangs up.
Derek looks over at her, at her wet eyes, and he reaches over and takes her hand. She holds it tight in her grasp for a moment before letting it go.
“Both hands on the wheel,” she says halfheartedly. “The last thing they need is for us to–”
For us to get into an accident. Derek can hear the end of her thought. Just like our parents .
He pulls over and stumbles out of the car, gasping for breath. Casey’s right behind him.
“I know. Me too.” That’s all she says, all she can say, and Derek is suddenly just so grateful that they were at the same university, that they were together, that they can take it in turns to break down and be strong. “I’ll drive for a little while, okay? It’s only fair.”
He doesn’t argue. “You can call them, maybe, see what’s going on,” she offers, once they’re both in the car.
“I feel fucking useless,” Derek admits, and he can’t meet her eyes. “Hearing them on the phone, I can’t do anything, it–it’s torture, Case.”
“Yeah.” Her voice is a whisper. She knows the truth of it more than anybody else ever could, because she’s living it with him.
“I’ll drive fast.”