Every love story has a beginning, but a few lucky ones never get an ending.
Once upon a time, Kelly Taylor had believed that her love story with a certain native Minnesotan would stand the test of time and never find its conclusion. Looking back, she knew that she was naïve then; they were both too young to understand what a love like theirs meant in the long run. She had always been too caught up in something else – in Dylan, in Finley, in drugs, in herself. Brandon Walsh had been the only person to ever truly be patient with her, but she hadn't appreciated that at the time. Instead, she had divulged her usual selfish tendencies and took his presence for granted. It was only after that night of swimming on the beach that she realized maybe he wasn't always going to be there.
It had been a long ten years since she had seen Brandon, not since he had traveled back to California when Steve and Janet had their first son, Alexander Brandon Sanders. He had been a good godfather according to their mutual friends, but they often ended up visiting him in Washington, D.C., since his busy travel schedule kept him from having too much time off. When he did take those precious vacation days, he was going to Hong Kong to visit his parents or across the Atlantic to see Brenda and Dylan. The two star-crossed lovers had been married for three years now, having wedded just a few days shy of Sammy's birthday. It had been hard for Kelly at first but she was now happy for her two old friends. Sammy still had a father when he could fit in, and Kelly made sure that she picked up the slack the rest of the time.
However, all that time away from Brandon and Brenda and Dylan and the rest of the gang would soon be coming to an end, and she couldn't help but wish that it were under better circumstances. Nat had put up one hell of a fight when the doctors had diagnosed him with terminal pancreatic cancer last fall, but his efforts had proven fruitless once the disease had transitioned into its fourth and final stage. Kelly and Steve had been there nearly every day, with David and Donna flying in once a month to visit. Brenda and Dylan had sent flowers and cards on a weekly basis, and Kelly had walked in on Brandon's daily phone calls to his mentor on more than one occasion. Brandon had been the first person that Joanie called when Nat had finally succumbed, and now here Kelly was, waiting at the airport to pick up her ex-fiancee.
"Kel!" She recognized the voice even before she saw him. He was older now, with a neatly trimmed goatee and slightly shorter hair than he'd had the last time he'd visited Los Angeles. He was still as handsome as ever, stopping short of her to shift his bag over his shoulder to greet her with a kiss on the cheek. His blue eyes went wide as he looked at the shy five-year-old hiding behind her skirt. "Well, you must be Sammy."
Kelly watched as Brandon knelt down beside her to talk to her son. He smiled up at Brandon warmly, surprising his mother at how quickly he took to the man. Sammy was usually pretty quiet and took awhile to get used to someone new. However, as soon as Brandon produced a baseball from his bag, the kid was an instant fan and the two of them quickly forgot about Kelly as they made their way to baggage claim.
"How was your flight?" she asked softly, bumping his shoulder as they stared at the luggage carousel. Brandon told her that it had been pretty non-eventful and made small talk about the weather and unusually warm temperature for a January in California. Kelly filled him in the arrival schedule of the rest of the old gang. "It's really good to see you, Brandon. I just wish it hadn't been so long or taken this to get us back together."
Tears shone in her wide eyes, pulling slightly on Brandon's heartstrings. He would be a liar if he said that he still didn't have a soft spot for a certain Kelly Taylor. But many years had passed and they were very different people now. He was completely engrossed in his world, traveling to the ends of the earth to report on the very issues that were shaping the world. She was a mother and a high school counselor, completely devoted to her son and her students. It was a far cry from the people they had been at twenty-two when they had almost gotten married in his back yard. He wondered if that version of himself would even recognize the people that they had become.
Still, despite all that, it was easy and familiar to wrap Kelly in his arms and hug her tightly in an effort to comfort her. She buried her face in his shoulder and clung to him. Brandon didn't want to admit that California hadn't felt like home again until he had held her because that would mean admitting that there was still something there between them. "Kel, I'm sorry that I wasn't here. I should have been here to help you guys with Nat," he apologized quietly. They both knew that he was apologizing for missing other things. "Joanie told me what a wonderful job that you and Steve did helping her. I have no way of telling you how much I appreciate that."
"He was our friend too," she reassured him, squeezing him once more before pulling away. She reached down and slipped her hand in Sammy's, drawing her son closer to her for comfort. It was easy to hide behind her son, busying herself with fixing his color and answering his incessant questions about things he saw in the airport. Brandon stared at her for a moment before she glanced back at him. "It's fine, Brandon, let's just get your bag and get you over to Steve's."
"We're going to see Uncle Steve?" Sammy asked excitedly, clapping his hands as he bounced on his feet. The man had become a surrogate father of sorts, coaching his soccer team and going on the father-son sleepovers for Cub Scouts when Dylan couldn't make it to town. "Yes! I can't wait to show him my new baseball! I told him I want to play baseball in the spring."
"That sounds good, sweetie," Kelly replied. Her voice was sad and tired, something that didn't go unnoticed by Brandon. He slid his arm around her waist and pulled her to his side, wanting to do anything he could to make her feel a little better. Kelly leaned her head on his shoulder and rested her hand on Sammy's shoulder. It was only when an older woman caught her eye and smiled that she realized that they probably looked like a family. She closed her eyes for a moment and pretended that was true. Her brief happy spell was quickly broken, however, as the carousel jumped to life and luggage started spinning around the conveyor belt in front of them.
After Brandon had retrieved his pair of black suitcases, the three of them made their way out into the warm afternoon sun. With Sammy tucked between them, they headed toward short-term parking and Kelly's silver SUV. Brandon smiled as she buckled her son into the backseat and handed over her keys to Brandon so that he could stow his luggage in the truck. She was far from the blonde beach bunny in the red BMW he had meet junior year. Listening to her sing a silly nursery rhyme about peanut butter with her son, he realized that she was a mother and felt overwhelmingly happy that her dream had come true – even if he hadn't been the one to do that for her.
"Do you want to drive?" Kelly offered. He could see the exhaustion in her face and nodded obligingly before slipping behind the steering wheel. Sammy was asleep by the time they hit the 105, and Kelly's hand had found its way across the console to his just before he pulled onto the 405. Brandon enjoyed the silent drive toward his old house, the one that Steve still shared with Janet and their two kids. With only the soft snores of the two Taylors to keep him company, Brandon felt more at peace than he had in years.
Nearly forty-five minutes later, Brandon parked the SUV behind Steve's new Corvette and killed the engine. He took a long look at his old house and allowed the memories to wash over him. The years with his parents and then Steve and Val in college and Kelly after – they had been the best of his life. When he looked back down at Kelly, she was watching him with a soft smile, only to whisper, "I know." Brandon nodded his head and squeezed her hand again before looking up at the house. A long time might have passed, but this was still home to him. This city, this house, this girl – that was it for him.
They spent the next several hours with Steve and Janet, catching up on old news and talking about their friends. One by one, the old gang filed into Casa Walsh, a name it still retained more than a decade since the last Walsh had actually lived there. Donna and David arrived from Japan with their daughter, the two of them looking much happier than they had been when Donna had visited Kelly last fall. Dylan and Brenda were the next to arrive, the two of them instantly disappearing into the backyard to play with Sammy. Brenda was five months pregnant, the faintest hint of a baby bump beginning to show. It was their miracle baby, a little girl that would bare her maternal grandmother's name and be as smart as her uncle.
Andrea and Jesse had flown in from New York late in the afternoon, their teenaged daughter looking just like her mother had at sixteen. They had lived in Beverly Hills for a few years but had headed back to the East Coast when Jesse had been offered a tenured position at Columbia. Valerie and Noah were the next to come crawling into the house, the two of them perfectly tanned from a stint in the Virgin Islands where they were running a pair of night clubs. Neither Clare nor Matt were going to be able to make it back, with Clare in Paris in her last month of pregnant with her first child with Prince Carl and Matt back east in the midst of a major trial. Gina had sent an impressive array of flowers to the church for the services, unable to get a break from the professional figure skating tour she was on in Europe.
Kelly was talking to Janet at the counter when she realized that she hadn't seen Brandon for awhile. She headed toward the living room, not at all surprised to find Valerie and Brandon sitting close, wrapped up in a conversation. She forced herself to smile at her old enemy, knowing full and well that she was happily engaged to Noah. However, there would always be that old usual suspicion with Valerie, even if Brandon wasn't hers to claim.
"Hey, Kel," Valerie chirped, looking up from her place on the couch. Brandon had his arm wrapped around her, their heads tucked close together as they looked over an old photo album. "I was just asking Brandon here to stand up with me at my wedding. Luckily for me, I know that he happens to look pretty good in a tux."
"Still best friends after all these years, I see," Kelly commented nonchalantly, hoping her voice didn't betray her. She didn't want to seem jealous but she was. Brandon had managed to keep friendships with nearly everyone but her.
Brandon nodded and looked up at his old friend. Kelly had never understood the bond that her former flame felt with Valerie. From where she stood, Valerie had been the only one to benefit from that friendship. What Kelly and most others didn't get was that Val had always been on Brandon's side and no one was more supportive than her. Even when she was destructive and mean, she truly felt like she was trying to protect him.
"Well, if you will excuse me, I am going to go find Noah. We're supposed to pick up Jim and Cindy at the airport in a half-hour," Valerie stood up to excuse herself. Brandon hugged her and thanked her for picking up his parents at the airport. "Kelly, I hope that you will be able to come to our wedding as well. We might not have always gotten along, but I know that Noah would love to have you there. It's been a long time, so I hope we can put all that behind us."
"Of course," Kelly obliged politely, trying not to let her skepticism pass. Once Valerie was gone, she came across the living room and sat down next to Brandon, picking up the photo album before leaning back against the plush couch. Their eyes wandered down to the old photographs, smiling images from their college years when things had seemed so complicated but had really been so much simpler. "Can you believe my hair?"
"Are you kidding me?" he laughed, his fingers tracing the outline of her face in a snapshot from the old beach apartment. "You were always beautiful, Kel. I can't believe how little you have changed. You look exactly the same, other than the fact you have that cute kid in tow instead of Donna and my sister."
"Sammy is the best accessory I could have ever found."
"Steve tells me that he's a great kid. I have to say, I don't really see much of Dylan in him. From what I see, he's pretty much just like his mother," Brandon told her, and Kelly knew that it was a compliment. "You're doing an amazing job, Kel. I always knew that you would be a good mom."
She thought for a moment about the baby they had lost just before their college graduation, something she rarely let herself do. "She would be thirteen now, you know?"
"I always thought that it was probably a girl too," he retorted softly, seeking out her hand before turning the page. They were snapshots of their wedding, when her hair was much shorter and his smile had been much brighter. "Ah, the wedding that never was..."
Kelly flipped the page quickly, not wanting to see herself that happy with Brandon again. That dress had been the bane of her existence at one time, and she hadn't looked back at that day in years. The next several pages were devoid of him, instead filled with pictures of herself with Matt and then Dylan again. Brandon was quiet as she turned the pages. "I thought I was happy."
"Thought?"
"I thought I loved Matt and then that I had fallen for Dylan again," she confessed. "In fact, I thought that for awhile. I mean, I guess I had to go through all of that to get Sammy, so I don't regret it. I just wish I had figured it out sooner afterward."
"Kel..."
"Brandon, come on," she pled softly. "Let's not do this, okay? You can tell me that you don't feel the same or that your life is in D.C. or whatever line you need to use to let me down gently, but we both know the truth. We both feel it...have felt it since you left, even when there were other people. I've loved you in one way or another since I was eighteen and followed you across the country to Washington. If I didn't have a little boy, I would follow you now again. It seems silly to even say that because we've barely talked about it, but seeing you again – I just know."
He could deny it just like he had spent the last decade doing. He could return to D.C. all alone and never look back. He could be lonely and throw himself into work. "My job is there. I can't just leave."
"Not asking you to," she replied. "Just asking you to keep the possibility of something open." She was quiet for a moment before she looked up at him. "Losing Nat... Brandon, life is so fragile. He found Joanie again so late in life and they didn't have long enough together. And now Frankie is going to grow up without his dad there for all the big things that kids need their dads for. Sometimes I worry about Sammy doing that, with Dylan in London and whatever. But I also think about what it will be like for Joanie, to grow old and not have Nat there with her. I don't want to have to wonder."
Brandon reached up and tucked a piece of golden hair behind her ear delicately. "You won't," he vowed. "Whatever happens, we'll figure this out. If I can't move on after being gone this long, I'm never going to leave you behind." He smiled before pressing a kiss to her forehead.
Exactly one week later, Kelly kissed Brandon goodbye at the gate as her son waved frantically beside her. Two months to the day, he stepped off the plane again, with all of his worldly contents on their way across the country in a moving truck. They were married within six months, and two years after Nat's funeral, Brandon and Kelly welcome Nathaniel James Walsh into the world.
Fin.