Derek had long since accepted the way things were. He was thirty-three and his family had been killed by that selfish monster who dared call himself a husband and father when he was nineteen.
He had never thought about having a family again. Not a real one anyway.
The pseudo one he had with his friends was already enough. He could never do the whole domestic thing after how badly it ended for his mom and siblings.
Derek wasn't cut out for that. Watching out for one person aside from himself was hard enough already.
He obviously cared about the rest of his friends but they didn't need him the way Joy did. None of them thought he was dependable aside from her. To be fair, he hadn't really been there for the rest of them the same way unless you counted commiserating with Becca about their mutual job hunting problems and trying to keep Hunter away from Gwen when she was understandably mad at him.
