What's up everyone? Here's a two-shot for you, and I'm posting both parts at once! I'm not sure if I like the ending but please review and let me know what you think. :] I wrote this in Casey's point of view.

P.S. Hope everyone enjoyed the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games as much as I did. I'm so proud to be Canadian!

P.P.S. I know Casey is kind of young to be playing the role she is in this story, but remember that she is very smart and capable.

Push & Pull

I had a love hate relationship with my doctor when I was younger. At the end of every visit, he would give me a yellow lollipop from the jar of lollipops he kept on his desk, next to the miniature doctor figurine that was more tacky than tasteful. That didn't bother me as much as the horrid prescriptions he'd write on that slip of paper, because I could never make them out. I vowed to myself then that if I ever became a doctor, I would give lollipops AND write in pretty cursive writing.

However, after going through several years of school and now having to deal with countless patients a day, I began to understand why he couldn't write properly, or wrote so fast it was unintelligible. He was in the practice of having to deal with said countless patients a day, and he was simply overworked.

Signing off a prescription that I could barely make out myself, I passed it on to the elderly woman who gave me a tender smile. That was the only redeeming moment of this job, the gratefulness that your patients held for you.

Pushing my glasses up my nose with a slender finger bare of nail polish, I quickly pressed down on the intercom.

"Hi, Pat. Are we good for today?" I asked, hoping she would give me the right answer.

"Right you are, Miss Casey. Go home and rest, it's been a long day." The somewhat older woman replied back, and I felt my face break into a relieved smile. I was working from early morning to evenings every day, and part of me wondered if it was worth it. I was twenty-eight and from the time I entered medical school, I had invested myself so much in my work that I never found time for myself.

As I looked out at the calm street, the sun's deep orange glows flowing over my office, I let my lab coat fall onto my chair and felt my shoulders slump in exhaustion.

It had been several months since I had seen my family who were still living in London. I managed to get my own small clinic in a quiet neighbourhood in Toronto, and somehow the patient list kept growing.

I considered myself lucky most days.

But there were days when I got home to my single apartment, and I wondered if it was all worth it. I wondered as I watched insipid reality shows about people dating, and getting married and having kids, if it was all worth it. Even my fellow classmates who had stressful days like mine were beginning to settle down.

I've always known that I'm an attractive woman, and that if I just put myself out there, I wouldn't have trouble doing these things that I secretly longed for.

And I hated myself, for acting like some scorned woman who had once lost love and couldn't get back up again. But this is what he was always capable of, and what he had reduced me to.

Stacking up some papers and files on my desk, I turned off the desk light and pushed in my chair. I gripped at the back of it, closing my eyes for a brief moment. Another day had ended, but a part of me didn't want to go home and face the empty life that I actually led.

It was at this moment that I reminded myself that I'm Casey McDonald, and I can do anything I put my mind to. I'm successful and I'm damn good at what I do. It continued like this every day for as long as I could remember, and it was a routine I resigned myself to.

So when I heard a knock at the door, I thought it was Pat coming to tell me I should go out that night and enjoy myself like a normal young person like she told me every day. I would tell her that I have plans with a couple girlfriends, but she'd give me a knowing look from the sad glint in my eyes. All my friends were settling down and girls' nights didn't happen as often.

I'd smile anyway, and lock up the office and head home on my own.

So when I opened the door, I had to look up, instead of down, because this person towered over me unlike Pat. When I opened the door, I had to take a step back, back into familiar territory, because I was suddenly faced with something I never thought I'd face again.

When I opened the door, he was standing there, with an all too familiar smirk adorning his lips.

I felt my eyes widen, and my heart race uncontrollably. I felt my fingers digging into my palms, and my jaw tightened.

"Think you can squeeze in another patient, doc?" his smooth voice that always sounded like he had just rolled out of bed flowed over my body like that warm shower I'd take after a long day. And I cursed myself for feeling like those scorned woman who fell at the feet of the man who had scorned them in the first place.

"Derek Venturi. Never thought I'd see your ugly mug around here." I said defiantly. I wasn't miss sweet Casey McDonald anymore, hell, I never was with him. But I had made the mistake of letting my guard down.

He pouted then, and I found myself immediately drawn to the action. His pretty mouth that I envied set against his strong jaws and perfectly placed above his smooth chin. The long girlish eyelashes hovering over the defined cheekbones and dark mischievous eyes that he always looked at me with, with a glint of desire and happiness.

I didn't want him looking at me like that. The last time he'd laid eyes on me, they were completely devoid of emotion and it had sent chills through my body. He hadn't changed much, except his face looked more mature and defined and his presence seemed to take over the room more than usual if it was possible.

"Casey, Casey, Casey." He drawled then in that annoying voice, and I felt like I was fifteen again.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked, and I walked around him to shut the door. I'm not sure what Pat was up to, but I didn't need her hearing about this. I didn't want her to see this man that practically embodied a huge chunk of the regret I that had in my life. The rest of the regret was letting my mother marry his father.

"Is that any way to talk to your sick step-brother?" he asked, seating himself down on a chair and getting comfortable like he owned the place. I fought the queasy butterflies that rose in my stomach. It was just like him to reappear in my life without any warning, without letting me rehearse my part of the script. This is what he always did, he always caught me off guard and constantly worked to shatter my perfectly organized world and made me live with myself sans the petty Casey facade.

"You're pretty sick in the head if you think you can just waltz in here like we're best friends." I retorted with a clipped tone. I really wasn't in the mood for this. It had been so long since I had seen him last and I looked around me briefly to check if I was really in my office, and not caught in the desert experiencing some wild heat stroke induced mirage.

"Not a lot of girls can say they've had the luck of knowing Derek Venturi as long as you have." He said, and we both stiffened slightly at his mention of other women. Apparently his arrogance and idiocy hasn't been replaced by maturity, and they wouldn't be for a while yet.

"Doesn't really count, because you know, I haven't seen nor heard from you in six years." It was only in that moment that I realized it had been six years, when it felt like everything happened yesterday. It sickened me that he left such a lasting impression.

"You didn't contact me." Excuse me?

"Why in seven hells would I want to do that? What, did you forget how to use a computer, or a phone or even send a letter?" It was easier coming down on him, so much easier to be condescending and acting like I was above him.

He broke eye contact for the first time since he came in, and shifted his gaze to the floor.

"I didn't think you wanted to hear from me." You're damn right about that. I swallowed the bitterness that had risen in my throat, and sat down at my desk, putting my lab coat back on. It gave me a sense of security, a reminder of all that I had accomplished even after he left me.

"Look, as much as I'd like to see to you, I'm not accepting any new patients at this time." I said carefully, in the professional voice I sometimes adopted with people. And on cue, he just scoffed at me. I hated that he could see right through me.

"And you still can't lie after thirteen years." He laughed then, and I felt my chest warming at the sound. I hated it, and I hated him. I hated that he could still stir something inside me, whether it be hatred, annoyance, lust or love. I wanted to feel nothing for him, to prove to him and to myself that Derek Venturi wasn't the only person who could make me feel as deeply as I did in so many different extremes.

His eyes narrowed imperceptibly, and I could tell that he was seeing the affect he had on me. To anyone else, I would seem completely normal, but he could always read me so well. Too well.

I let out a sigh and ran a hand through my hair that now fell to the small of my back, and I watched with some reserved pride as he stared at it for a moment. If I gave Derek what he wanted, maybe he would disappear. The guy wasn't that complicated.

"What can I do for you?" I forced a smile, and wrote up a new file with the name Derek Venturi on top in the small white boxes. He watched with fascination as I filled in his information, even his health card number. I convinced myself it was because I had a good memory, but we both knew otherwise. I asked him for his phone number and address, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't ask the family from time to time about his whereabouts. Of course, I only did that because I wanted to avoid him. But I'd be lying if I said that was completely true, as well.

This would be the last time I saw him, and I'd feed his file into my shredder at home. If I knew him as well as I thought I did, this was a one-time deal and I wouldn't see him again. The scary part was, that's what I thought six years ago.

"Well," he started, scratching the back of his neck and a lazy smile spreading across his face. "I've been having headaches lately, the kind that spreads into your neck you know?" His voice was slow and creaky, the voice he'd use whenever I woke up beside him each morning.

"Hmm. Usually those kinds of headaches are induced by stress." Derek smirked at that, and I knew he was thinking that I was the one synonymous with stress, while he was the opposite.

"I'm not really stressed about anything in particular," he looked straight at me then, and I felt my heart skip a beat. "But it's been going on for a while. My doctor went on vacay for three weeks, and I didn't feel like going to some random person I didn't know."

"Oh, so you decided to pester your dear step-sister who happens to be a physician. How nice for you." I said dryly, and I felt the professional facade I had up but for a moment begin to slip away.

"Now, now Casey." He said patronizingly, and I saw him glance at my hands for an instant, his eyes smiling at the lack of a ring. I didn't like that he was finding out everything about me. I was single, a doctor, and I didn't forget a damn thing about him. I had broken my last promise to him of forgetting everything about him and everything about the time we had spent together. I could tell he was relishing in it.

"Well, go over and sit down on the bed and I'll get to you in a second." I said, pushing my chair out and scribbling a few things down on his file. I felt like I was wasting my time even doing such a thing, but my keenerism as he'd call it, prevented me from not doing it perfectly.

"Thanks doc, I really appreciate it." He drawled lazily, that shit-eating grin permanently attached to his face.

So when I put my hand on his chest, directing him to lie down so I could check his blood pressure, I tried my damnedest to ignore the irrevocable shivers that passed through my body at the contact. I didn't want to think about the way his breath hitched, or the way he suddenly avoided my gaze like he was walking on eggshells with me. I didn't want to think about the way I could tell a story about every movement he made because we still knew each other that well, even after not setting eyes on each other for six long years.

When I wrapped and attached the velcro to his strong arm and I was forced to touch his skin, we became silent then, and I could see the thousands of thoughts running through his mind. If I was sixteen, I would tell him to stop thinking so hard lest he hurt himself. But I'm twenty-eight, a grown woman, and not in his life anymore.

Why did he have to choose now to come barrelling into my life like it was nothing?

"Your blood pressure's normal, so there's nothing wrong there. How long have you been experiencing these headaches?" As soon as I said that, it felt like I had hit a nerve so to speak and he didn't have an immediate response.

Something about the way he looked up at me then, his expression suddenly naked and vulnerable and I had a sinking feeling that his headaches had been there for a long time. Maybe since...

But I was getting ahead of myself, obviously.

The sun was beginning to disappear from the horizon, and the street lights began to flicker on. The bright fluorescent lights in the office were becoming strangely intrusive, and I couldn't look at his face anymore. He was still looking at me with that expression, and I felt my bottom lip tremble slightly with worry. That was a mistake because he immediately dropped his gaze to my lips. His eyes darkened in that way they always did before he kissed me, or touched me, or whenever we ended up on the floor wrestling over some inane object that was just used as an excuse.

I turned quickly, wanting to avoid the obvious moment that had just occurred and I asked him to sit up and join me by my desk. He was still quiet and it unnerved me. The rustling noises he created stepping off the bed kicked at my nerves as I was acutely aware of every sound, every movement, and every breath he took. I hated being like this.

"Okay, so, I'm going to ask that you get your blood work done – sometime soon preferably," I said tersely, filling out a form and checking off the appropriate boxes. "I'm also going to give you a prescription for some light pain killers that should help for a while." I was talking to him, but all he did was stare at me.

I cringed internally when I realized my prescription for him was in pretty cursive handwriting, not the unintelligible mess I had gotten used to doing. I handed it to him, and like a cliché drama flick, our fingers touched and I didn't dare look at him in the eye to see his reaction. I didn't need to. I could just feel his arrogance rolling off him in waves.

"Do you have any questions?" I said finally, writing some notes down on his file and preparing to close it. I decided I'd keep in there in my office, and not because I didn't want to shred it after all.

It was literally a fraction of a second before he spoke up, but it felt like years.

"Case?" he said with too much familiarity for my liking. I pushed my glasses up my nose, and I set my eyes on him.

"Normally my patients call me Dr. McDonald, but I'll let you off with Casey." I let a subtle rise in intonation creep into my voice when I uttered the second syllable in my name. Not enough to be rude, and not enough to seem like I'd let him have his way.

"Case-y." He amended, and I hid my smile at his evident irritation. "Thanks for this, I honestly thought you'd throw me out the minute you laid eyes on me." He gave me this warm smile, the one he'd always give me when we'd work together on something, or we helped the other out in some way. I felt myself smiling back against my will.

"I honestly thought about doing that too." I said, humour colouring my voice. He laughed again, and I ignored the way how attractive he looked with his loose shirt hanging on him, rising up and baring skin that I hadn't seen since that night.

"So, you'll call me if anything's wrong with test results right?" he asked, and I knew it was his way of asking if I'd let myself be a part of his life again. The smile I had faltered a little bit, and immediately his did as well.

"I can send your results to your physician, Derek." I told him curtly, and I saw his shoulders drop a little.

"Casey, can we—" No, we really can't Derek.

"Now," I said standing up and gathering papers again. "It's getting late and I need to get going." I shrugged off my lab coat once again and I didn't need to turn around to know that his eyes were tracing every detail of my body. Self-consciously, I adjusted my pencil skirt and silk blouse.

"Oh, got a hot date tonight?" he asked, his voice dripping into that familiar inflection of a sneer that he often used with me when he wasn't pleased. I felt myself grimace at his jealousy, and I wondered if he erased the memories of when they had last seen each other.

"Maybe, but why do you care?"

I always knew that he cared. When I went out with that scumbag coach, he cared. When I dated Sam, he cared. When I wasted my time with Max and Truman, he cared. But he never wanted to admit it.

"Just wondering." Yeah, okay.

But I was Casey McDonald, and I was constantly working to put up a nice, polite and perfect facade because that's what people expected of me. I didn't want people to know that I wasn't perfect or that I wasn't always in a cheery disposition. Derek always had the ability to strip that down.

So when I gave him a fake smile, and told him that it was good to see him again – he knew it was a lie. When he waited there stubbornly for me to pack up, and followed me as I locked up the office, he knew I was restraining myself. When we stood there out on the street afterwards, the street lights illuminating our shadows on the sidewalk, he looked at me with what I thought was longing, but I didn't want to kid myself.

He knew that I wanted to cry, and he kept his distance. He knew that I was still mad at him for what he did, and that I might never forgive him. But he just didn't say anything.

"We should... go see the family sometime." He tried, but he knew it was a lost cause. I smiled sadly, and turned towards my car that was parked on the street.

"I'm not so sure if that's a good idea." I said finally, and his smile finally faltered and he wasn't kidding himself anymore. It was awkward for a moment, and I didn't know what to say.

A few cars whizzed by on the silent side street, and a chilly breeze blew past us, rustling our clothes. Suddenly, he closed the distance between us and he wrapped his arms around me, his lips in dangerous proximity to my neck. I could feel his warm breaths cascading over my skin, and I was too shocked to even move. He released me before I could even utter a sound, and he threw me a signature smile that used to make me weak in the knees – and still did.

"See you around, Case." He said then, purposely leaving out the last syllable. I gave him a brief wave, too scared of what my voice would sound like if I tried to speak. He turned and walk down the dark road, without looking back. I stood there watching him until he disappeared into the darkness, the bright city lights shedding light on the inevitable distance that was forming between us once again.

-

When I received his blood test results a week later, I sent them off immediately to his doctor without reviewing them. I didn't want the chance of me needing to get involved in his life again should something actually be wrong.

But I knew Derek, he was a stubborn ass and he wouldn't let anything bring him down from his self-proclaimed glory, not even a common cold. I supposed he was taken down a peg or two when he had the chicken pox, and at that memory I resisted the urge to smile.

With that out of the way, I could say goodbye and good riddance. I wouldn't think about the way he held me that night ever again.

Did I mention that Derek Venturi is a stubborn ass?

"Are you sure you're not suffering from a psychological disorder?" I asked him, my voice steady. He was standing there in the doorway, sans appointment, sans modesty, sans sense of any kind. He raised his eyebrow at me with that silly smirk plastered on his stupid face.

"You must be if you thought it'd be a good idea to come back here. I'm not a psychiatrist by the way, I never could become one because you drove me crazy first." I rambled, and his smirk melted into this soft smile that I didn't stare at. Did stare at. He ran a hand through his hair that was still messy, but shorter than I remembered it to be.

I noticed with a sinking heart that the office, that had been wrought with tension the last time he graced me with his presence, was considerably lighter and I knew then that this wasn't progressing in a healthy direction. Derek and I, even though we bickered and threw insults at each other at every opportunity, it was our way of getting along.

The only moments we didn't get along were when he caused me to cry, or when I caused him to second guess himself. When he betrayed me, and when we didn't talk for extended periods of time.

"Dr. Case," he began then, walking towards my desk and seating himself down once more in that chair. "I need healing." He said, and I refused to think about the way he had sung Sexual Healing while making us pancakes – the ones where you only needed water because he didn't know how to make the other kind.

I sighed exasperatedly, and I knew it was just a ruse to see me. If I said that though... it might lead the conversation to unfamiliar territory that I would never be ready for.

"What's the matter this time?" I replied curtly, drawing up another sheet for him in his file.

"I've been having strange stomach aches lately, and I don't have anyone to kiss it and make it better." He whined.

He went on to rub his stomach, in a way that I knew he was faking it. He knew just as well as I did that I wouldn't want to call him out on it, and I was sure he figured that he had nothing to lose. It was always a battle of wills, to see who would crack first. I glared at him, in a way I couldn't with anyone else, because I was challenging him. He returned the look and I raised my eyebrow.

"Really now, how long has this ache persisted?" I asked, adopting my professional voice once again. He pretended to think, rubbing his chin with his fingers.

"Hmm, a few days now I'd say." And even though he was lying, he always sounded so damn genuine. I thought about the next actions that I could take. Normally with patients who feel aches in the abdomen region, I'd lay them down on the table and tap at their stomachs, asking them if it was tender in a certain area. It that way, I could narrow down the problem and ask them further questions.

Derek was playing a pretty good game. He cornered me once again, and I wondered to myself for the millionth time in my life why he never used his craftiness when it came to school. I realized in that moment that I wasn't sure what Derek was even doing with his life, because I refused to ask the family that many details.

I shook off my nerves and breathed in slowly. Derek wasn't going to leave, and I didn't want to think about how his presence was staving off that empty feeling I'd been having lately.

"Go lie down on the bed, moron." I sneered at him, not afraid to show that he had indeed cornered me.

"Tsk, tsk." Was all he said in a teasing voice.

The family always wondered what had happened between Derek and I. They had figured out pretty quickly that we were together and had begrudgingly come to accept it after a while, Marti claiming that she knew it would happen a long time ago. I never told them after we broke up that it was just a game to Derek, and it wasn't some monumental relationship in which we were meant for each other, like everyone including me thought it was.

I was standing over him then, and I squared my shoulders. I could do this. I was an adult and I could handle this.

I lifted his shirt. I tried not to blush. He tried not to smile.

He was looking at me with those eyes, with that expression, and it made me sick to think that we still had that affect on each other. When we were too close, it made for disastrous results. I just wanted to get this over with.

I proceeded to lightly touch his stomach, feeling the hard skin underneath the soft flesh and I could smell his unique Derek smell that made me feel a bit light-headed. I clenched my jaw inside my mouth, and attempted to focus.

"Does it hurt here?" My voice was low and breathy, and I refused to look at him.

"No, it's good there." He said, and I noticed his voice had changed as well. I pulled my stethoscope to my ear and placed the cold chest piece onto his stomach. He shivered at the contact, and I noticed with quick eyes his Adam's apple move up and down slowly. He was getting turned on by this, the nerve of him.

"Breathe for me, in and out slowly." I commanded, listening through the stethoscope for anything unusual. I touched the area below his rib cage and pressed in, watching him twitch with hurt. I recoiled slightly, and questioned his reaction. I looked up at his face and I wondered idly if he had become a professional actor because he had lying down to a science at this point. I had to also wonder if maybe he really was sick, and maybe I had become so distrustful that I assumed he lied about everything.

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. "It seems like it might be just gas, Derek. Not surprising because you always found time to share that gas with me when we were younger." And he laughed, the skin around his eyes crinkling slightly, making him look even more handsome and distinguished.

"So what do I do, Dr. Case?" he asked with a lazy smile.

"I could prescribe a light laxative..." I watched with satisfaction as horror spread across his face.

"Really, uhm, don't I just drink a lot of tea and eat lots of beans or something?" he scrambled, and I grinned genuinely for the first time in his presence.

"Beans don't go through your system as fast as Edwin's," We both grimaced at the various memories. "I think the laxative will ease the pain a lot sooner." I turned and walk back to my desk, writing up the prescription.

"Caseyy." He whined, and I ignored my heart fluttering. I just smiled at him, and signed off the prescription, noticing with despair that it was in pretty cursive handwriting once again.

"Don't Casey me. You want to get better, do as I say." I said finally with a smirk, knowing I had won our little challenge.

"If I do this, then you have to promise me you'll hang out with me sometime." What? I couldn't say I was surprised, but I was always amazed at Derek's blatant audacity.

I narrowed my eyes, "Doctors don't do bargains or trades with their patients, you idiot."

"Come on, Casey. You know you want to." And we were back to arrogance.

"Absolutely not. I have too much class to even say what I'd really like to say to you," and he flinched as if I hit him, because he knew that I was holding myself back from telling him how I really felt about us. "And it's just not a good idea." He frowned, and I waited for his response.

"Fine, but if you know me at all, you know I don't take no for an answer." He got up, swiping the prescription from my desk and sauntered out the door without as much as a goodbye.

That was because it wasn't goodbye it was see you later.

tbc.