A/N: Sorry this has been a little slow in being updated recently, life gets in the way sometimes!
Stevie woke to a quiet rustling sound. She fumbled, eyes still shut, across the bed, reaching for Derek. All she found were handfuls of cold sheets. Opening her eyes as she sat up, she could make him out in the darkness standing across the room, hunched over his bag.
"What're you doing?" She mumbled, her voice heavy with sleep as she reached to flick on her side light.
"Go back to sleep." He didn't look up from what he was doing - she could see now it was packing. He was fully dressed, in his usual shirt and slacks. "I didn't mean to wake you - I was going to leave a note."
"You what?" She pulled she sheets around her naked body as she kneeled up. "You're not leaving?"
He sighed and finally turned to look at her, his eyes dark in the reflected lamplight.
"I have to. I woke up and saw the light flashing on the telephone - it was a message at the front desk from Joan and she needs me back at home."
"I don't understand. What are you talking about? We only have one more day, she can't wait another day?"
"No."
He moved to the bathroom and she scrambled out of bed to follow him, sheets dragging behind her as she held them up unnecessarily to cover herself. She watched his inscrutable reflection as he threw his toiletries into a bag.
"I don't understand..." she repeated, half to herself.
He glanced into the mirror at her forlorn expression. She looked so tiny and vulnerable, almost comically lost in the huge white sheet. He felt a flash of white hot anger at the situation, how helpless he felt, how frustrated that he'd allowed himself to fall in love with this girl, and worse, allowed her to fall in love with him, when he knew he could never leave his wife. Before he was able to stop it, his rage had honed in on the only available target in the room, the thoughts that had been eating away at him since that first night together hitting her in a furious tidal wave.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do, Stevie? What do you want from me?" Her mouth hung open in shock as he stormed past her and hurled the toiletry bag into his case. "This isn't a game! You spend two days playing house and think that's it, happily ever after?"
Hot tears spilled down her face. He could hear himself saying everything he'd needed to say to himself, knowing it was unfair, knowing it wasn't her fault, but it was too late now. He couldn't stop himself if he tried. He opened his mouth to hit her with the next round but she got there first.
"I knew you'd do this! I knew you'd make it my fault! You're all the fucking same, why did I think you were different? You're just older than the others so you're smarter about breaking my heart, you waited until you had it all then decided to tear it in half!"
"It isn't all about you!"
"OF COURSE IT IS!!! We wouldn't be here if you hadn't decided you wanted me, you're all the fucking same, you want to have your cake and eat it too. Well go, go back to your frigid wife and miserable life! And I hope she knows next time you're making love to her cold, silent, passive body and you can't look her in the eye it's because you're thinking about me."
He walked over to her slowly, echoing shoes on the tiles the only sound except for her heavy breathing. She looked wild, red faced and hair flying out like a mane. He stopped inches from her, feeling her breath hot against his skin.
"Don't ever mention her again." He spoke quietly through gritted teeth and her knees almost buckled at the look in his eye, but she maintained her resolve. She'd taken too much shit from the men in her life before. Did he think she was stupid? That she really believed they would get a happily ever after? In a split second she decided to catch him off guard. She drew herself up to her full height under his gaze, pushing her face into his.
