This is the sequel to 'A Difficult Kind'.
A Window to the Past – Chapter 1
London
Brenda walks back to her apartment after meeting with her agent. She had taken a meeting with the producer and director of the play she was involved in before she had to flee the country and go back to California.
They wanted to hear it from her exactly what happened, since all they received was a signed notice of Brenda's unavailability on FBI letterhead.
'My brother and a few of my friends from back home were in trouble. The FBI thought that whoever was after them would also be after me, so they took me into custody for my own protection. There was nothing I could do about it and they said that they would handle telling you what had happened,' Brenda explains.
'You don't even know how sorry I am that I had to leave without any notice at all,' she says.
'We understand that part, Brenda. We really do feel sorry for you and for our audience, since opening night was the best night of the entire run of the show,' the director says.
'Thank you for understanding. My family comes before everything else in my life and this was unfortunately unavoidable. Everything seems to be back to normal now, though,' she confirms.
'Welcome back, Brenda. I truly hope that we will cross paths again,' the producer says. He shakes her hand and they leave the room.
'Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be,' Brenda's agent says.
'Yeah, right,' she says staring at the door, 'I'll never get another offer from them again.'
Brenda leaves her agent's office with a lot less confidence than she had when she walked in that morning. She reaches her apartment and goes inside. She checks her computer and reads an email from Brandon. He lets her know again and again that it was great to see her and that he's so glad that they finally worked everything out between them.
He had been trying to find an internship for the spring semester to get his career moving and had been on several interviews, but nothing had turned up yet.
Brenda smiles and closes her computer. It had been a month since the Marchette incident and Brandon had been very good at communicating with her almost daily.
She had heard from Dylan a few times from Hawaii as well. He told her that he was enjoying the rest and relaxation at his mother's house, but that she was starting to get on his nerves.
Brenda looks around her apartment and tries to remember what it was like before Dylan and Iris showed up and turned her life upside down. She kind of missed having them around and was battling with some feelings of loneliness and maybe a little regret.
She sits on the couch and sighs as she resigns herself to being alone again.
Casa Walsh – a few days later
Brandon runs into the house with a letter in his hand. He quickly drops whatever else he is carrying on the floor in the foyer and rips open the letter. He reads it as quickly as he can and starts jumping up and down.
'Yes! Yes! Yes!' he yells out loud.
He runs right to the phone and dials.
'Brenda, you are not going to believe this!' he says when she answers.
'Wow, Brandon, how are you? I'm fine, nice to hear from you,' Brenda starts saying.
'Not now, Bren, this is too important,' he says. 'I just got a letter from a political newspaper in D.C. offering me an intern job for the entire spring semester!'
'Oh, Brandon, that's great! I'm so proud of you,' Brenda says with excitement.
'Looks like you won't be the only one living the dream, Bren, I'm going back to Washington,' he says proudly.
'I'm so happy for you, Brandon. Are you going to get enough credit for it? When does it start?' Brenda asks him.
Brandon was so excited with the offer that he didn't even read that far down the letter.
'Two weeks, looks like I've got some packing to do,' Brandon says. 'I will get some credit for it, but I will probably have to take a few summer classes to catch up. I am so excited!'
Brenda laughs at her brother.
'Oh, Bren, on a more serious note, guess what happened this morning?' Brandon says.
'What's that?'
'Nat came out of hiding,' he tells her.
'He was hiding? Oh, thank God, I was really worried about him,' Brenda says.
'Yeah, we all were. Apparently, there is an underground bunker or something underneath the Peach Pit that he had locked himself into. He would come out at night and read the papers trying to figure out whether or not it was safe. He finally decided that he didn't care and just popped up one morning during the breakfast shift,' Brandon says.
'Amazing, I'm so glad he's alright. So the only one still missing from that horrible debacle is Valerie. Has anyone heard anything?' Brenda asks.
'Not a thing. I don't think she's coming back, Bren. After what she did, I wouldn't be surprised if we never hear from her again.'
'Well, Brandon, I have to go and you have to get packing. Email me with your information when you get to Washington, okay? Good luck and have a safe trip,' Brenda says.
'Will do,' Brandon says and hangs up the phone.
Brenda's phone rings again a few minutes after she hangs up with Brandon. She stares at it and laughs, thinking it's him.
'What did you forget to tell me, Brandon?' she says into the phone.
'Brenda?' she hears her agent's voice.
'Oh, sorry,' Brenda sighs, 'I thought you were someone else.'
'Listen, I have a touring group that needs a lead. They're performing 'The Taming of the Shrew' and the actress playing Kate just dropped out with influenza. It pays decently and it's a short run,' her agent says.
'When do they take off?' Brenda asks.
'Next Monday and it goes for two weeks. Do you think you could learn it by then? It's a lot of lines, but I know that you've done this play before, that's why I called. No one else can learn these lines that quickly,' he tells her.
Brenda looks around her house one more time and feels the emptiness in her chest. 'Um, yeah, okay, I'll do it. Where does the tour go?'
'Ireland and Scotland,' he says. 'I'll have the arrangements set up and send them to you.'
'Sounds good, thanks,' Brenda says.
Brenda puts the phone down and goes searching for her script from the last time she was in 'The Taming of the Shrew'.
Hawaii
Dylan and Iris sit at the table eating breakfast together. Dylan takes a sip of coffee and looks up at his mother.
'I'm really glad I came down here, Mom,' he says to her.
Iris smiles at her son and puts her hand on top of his. 'I am too, Dylan. I'm glad you have had some time to just relax and deal with everything that's happened.'
'Yeah, well, most of it at least,' Dylan says, staring down at his plate.
'Right,' Iris says, nodding her head, 'there is one thing that hasn't been resolved yet.'
Dylan stares at his mother. They have been through every moment of the Marchette situation with each other, with the exception of Dylan's relationship with Brenda.
'Dylan, it's been a month, don't you think getting some of those feelings off your chest would be helpful?' Iris asks him.
'I'm sure it would be helpful, but once it's out there,' Dylan starts to say.
'Once it's out there you have to deal with it, right? As long as it stays inside you can just ignore it and hope that it just goes away,' Iris finishes for him.
Dylan closes his eyes slowly and sighs.
'Dylan, sweetheart, I don't know that this helps in any way, but I really had high hopes for the two of you this time around,' Iris says.
'Thanks, Mom, that doesn't help at all,' Dylan tells her.
Dylan rests his head on his hand and stares down at the table.
'To tell you the truth, I have never felt better about my relationship with her than I did when we were in London together. It was almost surreal though, considering all of the other things that were going on at the time. I wanted to believe that what was going on between us was legitimate, but I just couldn't convince myself that that was true.'
'Dylan, besides you two sleeping together right before you left,' Iris starts to say.
Dylan's head shoots up off of his hand and he stares wide-eyed at his mother.
'Oh, please, Dylan, I'm not stupid and I do have ears, you know?' she says. 'Anyway, besides that, did anything else happen between you two that you could put in the real column?'
Dylan thinks about his time with Brenda in London. He starts to smile and looks over at his mother.
'Yeah, there was at least one real moment,' Dylan says. 'We left the house after you kicked us out to let you decipher one of the weird notes. We went to Hyde Park and sat down on one of the benches facing a pond of some kind.'
Flashback
'I told you that I'd always be here for you, Dylan, no matter what is going on,' she says.
'You know, you are the only one who really has been. After everything that we went through together, I always knew deep down that you were meant to be in my life,' he says sincerely.
Present Time
Dylan describes the slow, deliberate, tentative kiss that they shared. Iris gets a chill up her spine just hearing him describe the scene.
'After that we got up and started walking out of the park,' Dylan says. His mind tries to remember her touch and the feel of her fingers laced with his.
After a few seconds, Iris sees the color drain from Dylan's face and a scared look comes into his eyes.
'Dylan, what's the matter?'
'Oh my God, as we were leaving the park, one of her friends stopped us. He was the one that had been giving me a hard time ever since I showed up. There was definitely something wrong with that guy,' Dylan says quickly.
'Which one?' Iris asks, trying to remember Brenda's friends.
'Beau,' Dylan says with hatred in his voice. Dylan feels a knot start to form in his stomach and he kicks himself for not remembering sooner.
'I've got to warn her, what if he was in cahoots with Marchette? What if he was the one following you guys around? What if he tries to hurt her now that she's back in her apartment all by herself?' Dylan starts to freak out.
He gets up quickly and runs to the phone. He dials Brenda's number when he hears the click of her answering machine turning on he slams the phone down.
'Damn!' he says.
'Dylan, calm down, if Brenda was in trouble she would have said so when we talked to her a few days ago.'
Dylan thinks about what his mother just said. 'Maybe you're right. I'm still going to ask her about him though. I have a bad feeling about that guy.'
Dylan gets on the computer and sends Brenda an email.
He stares at the computer for a few minutes expecting a reply right away.
'Dylan, please, give her a break. I'm sure she's not staring at her computer or something in the hope that she'll get an email from you. Just relax, I'm sure she's fine,' Iris tells him.
'Can't you do some fancy card tricks and tell me if she's okay?' Dylan spits at this mother, continuing to stare at the computer screen.
'First of all, lose the tone, and second of all, that's not what the cards are for,' Iris says, leaving the table.
Brenda's Apartment
Brenda comes out of her bedroom with her luggage and puts it by the door. She grabs her keys and a backpack and opens the door.
She hands her suitcase to the taxi driver and goes back in to make sure she didn't forget anything. She passes right by her phone on the way out of her apartment, not noticing the missed call on the display.
She gets in the taxi to start her two week tour with 'The Taming of the Shrew'.
Casa Walsh – a week later
'Oh, Brandon, we're going to miss you!' Donna says, throwing her arms around him.
'Thanks, Donna, I'm going to miss you guys too,' Brandon says, putting the last of his bags by the front door.
'I can't believe you're leaving us,' Kelly says with a sad face.
'Come on, Kel, it's time to go out and get some real world experience,' he says with a smile.
'I'll wait until I'm out of college for that,' she says.
'Ah, you're loss,' he says. He shakes hands with Steve and they hug each other.
'Don't worry, guys, it's only for the semester. I'll be back for the summer,' he says.
They all give him skeptical looks as he grabs his bags and opens the front door.
'Okay, off I go,' he says, 'Take care of the house for me, okay, Steve?'
'You got it, Brandon,' he says.
They follow Brandon out to his car and watch him pack it up.
'I can't believe you're actually going to drive across the country,' Kelly says.
'One more adventure,' Brandon says. He gets in and starts the car. He backs out of the driveway and waves to them as he takes off down the street.
'I can't believe they're gone,' Donna says to the ground.
'What do you mean 'they'?' Steve asks her.
'Brandon and Brenda,' she says. 'They came into our lives in a whirlwind and now they're both gone.'
'They'll be back, Donna,' Kelly says.
'Yeah, right, Brandon might be back, but I think we've lost Brenda forever.'
'Don't say that, Donna. I know she thinks her life is complete over there in London, but she'll realize that she needs us as much as we need her,' Kelly says.
'I hope you're right about that, Kel, I miss her,' Donna says.
Kelly puts her arm around Donna and pulls her into a hug. Steve wraps his arms around both of them and they stand in the driveway hugging each other in the shadow of an empty Casa Walsh.
Brandon starts the trek across the country to his new home for the next four months. He lets the wind blow his hair around and the stress and emotional drain of the last few months leave his body as he drives farther and farther away from Beverly Hills.
Ireland
Brenda stands on the stage after their last show in Ireland taking her bow. The crowd is on their feet and as she bows she enjoys the heat of the lights and the excitement of performing well in her heart.
She runs off of the stage as the curtain goes down and shares a hug with the rest of the cast.
'This was our best performance yet. Brenda, you were incredible. Thank you for covering for me, I don't know what happened, but I just lost it there for a minute,' the girl playing Bianca tells her.
Brenda smiles at her and puts her arm around the girl's shoulders. 'Don't worry about it,' she says and hugs her.
'Okay, guys, let's get cleaned up and start tearing this set down. We've got to be on the bus in four hours,' the director says.
'Ugh,' Brenda says out loud and goes back to the dressing room.
The Beach Apartment
'Kelly, come on, you've been sulking for three days already,' Donna says, staring at her friend sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket and staring at the wall.
'I know, I'm sorry,' Kelly says without moving.
'Since when were you this hung up on Brandon?' she asks her.
'It's not just Brandon, Donna. I've been thinking a lot about what you said about Brenda and Brandon coming into our lives like little tornados and now they really are gone,' she says, 'at least for a little while.'
Donna sits down next to Kelly and puts her arm around Kelly's shoulders.
'Are you saying that you miss Brenda too?'
'As much as I don't want to admit that in any way, I kind of do miss her. She kept me on my toes with some of the things she used to say and do,' Kelly admits.
Donna rolls her eyes a little bit and turns her head enough so that Kelly doesn't see her.
'Come on, Kel, be honest, are you a little upset that there's no guy in your life right now?' Donna asks her.
Kelly looks at her with confusion. 'What does that have to do with what we are talking about?'
'Well, I've been around for a long time and it seems to me that when Brenda is happy with someone, you've got to compete with her in some way. That's what's been missing,' Donna says honestly.
'Donna, Brenda isn't with anyone right now and I really don't think that has anything to do with it,' Kelly says, getting a little annoyed.
'With everything that happened to us and her over the last few months, I'd be surprised if we don't find out that she's gotten back together with Dylan,' Donna says with confidence.
'They didn't seem too into each other over Christmas,' Kelly says.
'Kel, what's really going on?' Donna asks her softly.
Kelly sighs and tightens her arms around her legs.
'I think it's Brandon,' she says at a whisper. 'I'm not sure what brought it on, but I can't stop thinking about him.'
Donna smiles at her. 'I thought so. Well, you'll have plenty of time to figure out what to say to him when he gets back.'
'I don't think I can wait that long,' she tells Donna.
On the Road – Scotland
The bus had been traveling for a few hours. Brenda had tried to sleep, but couldn't keep her mind for running a million miles a minute. She pulls out her cell phone and goes to dial when she realizes that it has run out of battery power.
'Damn,' she says to herself. She wanted to call Brandon and see if he got to Washington, D.C. alright. She'd just have to wait until she got home, since she left the charger for her phone sitting on the kitchen table.
Hawaii
'Dylan, please stop doing that, you're making me dizzy,' Iris says, watching him walk back and forth.
Dylan stops for a second, looks at his mother, and then continues to pace.
'It's been a week, why hasn't she contacted me?' he says, mostly to himself.
'Oh, honey, you have got to stop worrying about her like this. She is a grown woman who can take care of herself,' Iris tells him.
'Mom, I'm just a little concerned, that's all,' he tells her.
'That's not all, Dylan. You know better than I do that there's more here than you're telling me,' Iris says.
Dylan sighs and finally sits at the table with his mother.
'I can't stop thinking about the last time I saw her, walking away from me in the airport. After everything that has happened, I'm not even sure if she ever wants to see me again,' he tells Iris.
'Where did you get that idea, honey?' she asks.
'Before she left to go back to London, we had a talk. I was having trouble sleeping and I couldn't stop thinking about how much I thought I wanted her to be in my arms. She said that it may have been carryover from the emotional rollercoaster we had just been on that I should take some time to figure out exactly what I wanted,' he says.
'Have you?'
Dylan looks at his mother and shakes his head. 'No,' he says. 'I thought that spending time here and being able to relax would calm my mind down enough to really think about it, but I haven't figured anything out. All I know for sure is that I have a knot in the pit of my stomach and it won't go away until I know that she's safe.'
'Well, Dylan, you can sit here and worry yourself about it or,' Iris suggests.
Dylan's eyes shoot right to his mother's face. She is smiling at him warmly and nodding her head.