He didn't know where to go or what to do. Dylan McKay had been driving around for hours, without direction.

Well, after all, that had been his entire life, no direction whatsoever. He was tired of it. His talk with Brandon kept coming constantly to his mind.

"You've hurt her too much, Dylan..." and he had. Hadn't it been enough? Wasn't it time to just drop it? He was putting his life in order finally, he was marrying KELLY. He loved her, didn't he? And she loved him, and now that he knew Brandon was cool with that, there was nothing to worry about.

He stopped the car in front of the Walsh house, for the second time. He knew Brandon would be out, he had probably expected that he would want to talk to Bren himself.

He had to see her again. Last time had happened so fast, and it had been so long since the last time... of course he was angry at her by the way the things had ended in London, but what did it matter? She was back...

He rang the bell.

Brenda came out at the moment, almost as if she would have been expecting someone, the moment her eyes met his she felt sick.

Of course she had been expecting this. She had spent the whole day with Donna talking about it, and practicing what she would say. Donna knew what had happened between the two of them back in London. Well maybe she didn't know everything, but she had the big picture, and she understood. She understood the way Brenda felt about him after all the years, she understood why she didn't want to let him know she was coming in the first place.

She had been preparing to face him again all day long but, of course, she wasn't ready. She just stared at him.

"Can I come in?" Dylan asked in his raspy voice. Brenda didn't say anything; she just moved aside and let him in.

But she was decided to stand for herself this time; he wasn't catching her out of guard anymore.

"I'm sorry about yesterday..." she said, decided to talk first.

"Yeah well... so am I" Dylan said. Suddenly all his anger seemed to be fading away as he regarded the girl standing in front of him. Did it matter? He was tired of being angry at her; he had been for so long since they parted, he was tired.

His answer surprised Brenda, who was expecting some sort of argument.

They went to the living room to sit down.

Brenda's whole speech was forgotten, she couldn't think of anything besides of the way Dylan was staring at her. Why? Why, after all this years, did his eyes still made her feel so... weak?

"How have you been?" He asked, gazing at her. It seemed such a lame question to ask and still... he just wanted to sit there, besides her, and forget all about the thing he had come by to tell her.

"Well you know... working...I was feeling kind of overwhelmed actually, so I decided to take a vacation..."

"I'm glad" Dylan could always notice when Brenda started to get nervous; it was high school all over again. There she was, trying to guess what he would say next, and there he was, trying to seem strong. All he really wanted was to take her into his arms.

But he didn't.

"But I guess you've been pretty busy yourself. The club... Kelly..."

She regretted it at the moment; she shouldn't have mentioned the name. And not just because at the moment, Dylan's gaze changed completely, but also because, the sole mention of Kelly's name to Dylan felt just like a punch in her stomach.

She wasn't that naïve. She knew that, even if Dylan was sitting right next to her at that moment, that didn't mean he didn't love someone else.

Not just someone else.

Kelly.

Dylan: yes I've... I've been meaning to talk you about that, Bren...

Did she want to hear what he had to say? It had been more than 2 years since they last saw each other, and this was to be the first thing they would talk about? Kelly??

God, why this kept happening to her? She did an effort to hide her frustration.

Brenda: yeah, Brandon told me you wanted to see me earlier today.

"Well, how Brandon." Dylan thought. He had told Bren that Dylan had stopped by to talk to her about something, but he couldn't bring himself to tell Brenda just what Dylan had to say, leaving her all curious, so that, even if he didn't want to give Brenda the news at that moment, he was gonna have to. Of course, Brandon didn't do any of this with that specific intention, he probably just wasn't ready to break such a new to his sister, and who could blame him? Dylan himself didn't want to be the one to tell her, but what else could he do? Letting her find out for somebody else? Brandon was one thing, but what if she heard it from the others? Kelly was sure to start spreading it around as soon as she was back, and that could be any day now. It would be terrible if Bren was to find out from David, or Steve, or even Kelly herself. Dylan knew only too well that Kelly would be more than happy to be the one telling Brenda that they were getting married. No, he couldn't let Brenda go through that, he wouldn't give Kelly the satisfaction of catching her by surprise, which would be too low.

No, he had to get it together and tell her. Only he couldn't possibly...

"It figures" Brenda said, casually. "Well... can't say I'm too surprised to seeing you two together."

"What??" Dylan asked, in a weird manner, almost as if he was hurt by her comment.

"Well, you know, besides of the fact that... well, I already knew, Brandon told me while I was still in London of course." Dylan smiled at what she said, so she smiled too.

"But you know, "she continued. "I was kind of expecting it when I heard you had come back"

She couldn't look into his eyes while saying this, she just couldn't. she realized Dylan was just staring at her in silence, so she went on, trying to carry on as if they were talking about somebody else, as if the guy who was in love with her once best friend wasn't the love of her life, but somebody totally unfamiliar.

"I'm sorry to break it to you but... you've become quite predictable as time goes by" she said, smiling. Joking, did she felt like joking? NO. This was being a good actress trained in RADA.

"Yea, I'm afraid I have" Dylan said, gazing at her, knowing that there could be nothing less funny than this, but smiling anyway.

Suddenly he had a thought. Maybe Brenda didn't need to know at that very moment that he was marrying someone else.

Not someone else.

Kelly.

She didn't have to know right then, did she?

Dylan: hey, do you wanna go grab a bite or something? You feel like coffee?

Brenda: two years since we last talked and all you can say to me is you feel like coffee??

Brenda asked, bursting into laughing. Dylan laughed too. She had not changed and, as he was now finding out, neither had he.

"I really want to talk to you" Dylan said finally. "Please come with me".

Brenda: well I guess we really have a lot to talk about...

"more than you know" Dylan said, half of him exited at the idea of spending the evening with her, but the other half of him could nothing but feel guilty about what he had to tell her.

"Ok, lets go" the girl said. She couldn't help herself. She had been all mortified thinking about the things Dylan and her would have to say to each other, but now that he was there, holding her hand and leading her to the door, it all just seemed so... useless. It was useless to worry about what she would do when Dylan and she were together, because things hadn't change that much and she still felt ready to give anything to be by his side.