If the choice is between brave or stupid, Derek's going to have to bet that he falls in the center of that particular Venn diagram; he's easily both. It's just that she makes him happy when he's around her and that's not something a whole lot of other people can say. Derek can probably count on one hand the number of people who could ever accomplish that feat, so she's in a very select group...and she's the only one who's still alive to do it.

Careful not to make her lose her balance, Derek starts to move back very slowly so that she has time to right herself. "Can I take you out to dinner?" he asks, and for the first time in forever, he feels like a teenager again. He hasn't asked someone out to dinner pretty much ever but he can't help thinking that the closest he ever came to it was when he and Paige were together when he was still a kid. Fifteen and free of worries, sorrow, and pain. It was a lifetime ago.

Right now, though, he's just going to enjoy Lucy and the fact that maybe there might actually be something to this...whatever it is that they have going on between them. He finds himself foolishly kind of hoping so.