Author's Note:

Just warning you guys, I'm rewriting some history in this chapter… Hope you don't mind too much. ;)

Part Four:

"I'm mad at you." Kelly announced the second she walked in the door to her apartment, dropping her keys in the dish on the side table in the entryway. She walked into the living room, giving the lovely brunette a pointed stare which quickly melted into a smile. "Why didn't you tell me Brandon was actually going to come?"

Brenda rose to her feet, handing back the red crayon she had been using to Sammy who was seated at the coffee table drawing. "It was supposed to be a surprise." Brenda shrugged her shoulders. "How'd you find out?"

"He called me." Kelly explained. "At work. Said he was going to be in town and was planning on coming to homecoming."

"Wow." Brenda shook her head, a smile tweaking up the corners of her mouth. "Brandon was never good at keeping a secret. Especially from you. Though why he called the school, I have no clue. I told him I'd get him any information he needed. What did he need, by the way?"

"I don't know. I didn't call him back." Kelly admitted. "Right after I got the message my day got really crazy and I didn't have a chance to do anything for homecoming. I swear, I don't know how I got roped into this in the first place."

"Because you and Harry are the only faculty or staff who is an actual graduate of West Beverly." Brenda pointed out.

"You are too."

"Yes, but I was only helping out with the play for a couple of weeks. I don't count." Brenda countered with a chuckle. "It was up to you or Harry to contact all the alums, and did you really want the poor new principal having to do that?"

"Yes!" Kelly glowered. "It would have served Harry right. Let him deal with all the catty former West Beverly students. I now understand why Mrs. Teasley refused to participate in it this year."

"Well, Mrs. T is also getting up there in years." Brenda continued. "I'm actually surprised she is still the vice principal. She's close to retirement age, isn't she?"

"Past it, actually." Kelly agreed. "She was going to retire last year, but decided she'd just get bored sitting on a beach in Florida and said she'd wanted to stay at least one more year. I think it had more to do with the fact that we had no principal until after the school year started, though. Mrs. Teasley would never abandon West Beverly if she wasn't sure it was in good hands."

"It was so nice seeing her again." Brenda commented as she began to stretch. "It's been nice seeing everyone. I've missed California."

"So why don't you stay?" Kelly pressed, brushing her blonde hair away from her face. "Harry still hasn't found someone to fill the drama teacher position. I'm sure he'd love to bring you on board."

"Oh, I see it now. A cottage in England. A flat in New York. And a condo in LA? No thank you, Kelly. My life is complicated enough as it is."

"But if you moved back to LA, you could try and get some television or movie jobs." Kelly wasn't quite sure why she was trying to pressure Brenda into staying. Up until the past few weeks, Kelly could have counted her and Brenda's conversations since she moved to London on just one hand. But after Brenda had come back and they were basically forced to talk, Kelly found she had missed her former best friend immensely.

"TV and movies is not theater, Kel." Brenda frowned. "I just can't picture myself doing something like that. At least not right now."

"But you'd be so great." Kelly urged. "Will you at least consider it?"

Brenda hesitated for a long moment, her gaze locked with Kelly's. At long last, she gave a barely discernable nod, shrugging her shoulders why she did so. "Alright, I'll consider it, Kelly. But only for you. As much as I've missed this place, London is home."

"Thank you." Kelly smiled. "Now, I'm famished. What do you saw we round up Silver and Sammy and head on down to the Pit for dinner?"

"Silver's already there." Brenda informed her. "She stopped by here for about ten minutes after school and then went straight there. Your sister sure is stuck on Harry's kid."

"Yeah, well, from what Harry tells me, Dixon is really sweet on Silver too." Kelly grinned. "I think it's kinda cute myself. Silver told me they're being smart about things – not rushing them. Which I think is good. Fifteen is far too young to be involved in a very serious relationship."

"Tell me about it." Brenda agreed with a long sigh, a strange look in her eyes. "High school should be about having fun. Sometimes I look back on my high school years and really regret some of the decisions I made."

"Such as?"

"Did I ever tell you that when I first moved here I wanted to join the cheerleading squad but you and Donna mocked them so badly I was too embarrassed to even try out?"

"Are you serious?" Kelly stared at Brenda, shame coursing through her. "That's so awful. You should have if you wanted to. Donna and I only hated the cheerleaders because we both were cut freshman year."

"What? You tried out and were cut?"

Kelly nodded. "We both wanted to be on the team so badly but, well, you've seen us dance. Neither of us are especially talented and when you're up against girls who have been taking dance since they were three, you don't stand much of a chance. You would have been amazing, though. You were always the best dancer out of us."

"Too late now."

"Well, West Beverly needs a cheerleading coach…" Kelly quipped.

"You're too funny, Kelly." Brenda shot her a look, then quickly changed the subject. "So what about you, do you have any regrets from high school?"

Kelly rolled her eyes. "Are you seriously asking me that, Brenda?" Kelly let out a long sigh. "You know I regret nearly every minute of every day both my freshman and sophomore years. Junior year was okay but then senior year – well, I have a lot of regrets that year."

"Yeah, me too." Brenda met Kelly's gaze. "You know, we've never really talked about Dylan."

"I know." Kelly nodded, guilt washing through her. She had been hoping this conversation would never come up. She had gone through such a period of self-loathing during the entire time she was with Dylan. She had never been happy because she knew their relationship had been built on a false foundation.

"Do you want to?"

"No, not really." Kelly admitted truthfully, "But it was bound to come up. Eventually. Might as well get this out of the way, right?"

"That's one way of looking at it." Brenda let out a mirthless laugh. "Actually, I was kinda hoping I could escape back to London without really having to give it much thought. I don't know if I want to go back down this road."

"I know I don't." Kelly agreed. "It was such a mess. I screwed up so badly, and I'm sorry. I betrayed my best friend for a chance to flirt with her boyfriend. Honestly, I never thought anything would have ever come of it. When I had made a pass at him when you two first got together, he had rebuffed me so strongly I never dreamed-"

"Me either." Brenda cut her off. "Looking back on it now, I realize Dylan much have been really unhappy in our relationship. Not between the two of us, but the baggage I brought with me."

"Baggage? What baggage?" Kelly adamantly shook her head. "Out of all of the gang, I think you and Brandon had the least amount of baggage."

"The Jim Walsh kind of baggage." Brenda went on to explain. "My dad never liked Dylan, could never accept him as 'good enough' for his little girl. By going behind my parents' back to be with Dylan, I only made things worse. No teenage guy wants to be yelled at every time he shows up on his girlfriend's doorstep, right?"

"They did make a pretty bad scene at my mom's wedding." Kelly furrowed her brow.

"I don't know if I've ever been so humiliated in my life as I was that night. Everything leading up to Paris was a complete disaster. So much drama. It was driving me nuts. I'm sure it drove Dylan even more so."

"But that still doesn't excuse what he did. What we did." Kelly remarked, studying Brenda's face.

"No, it doesn't." Brenda retorted, her eyes blazing with green fire. "You were my best friend, Kelly. You were so much more experienced with men. You should have known better."

"I know." Kelly found herself unable to meet Brenda's accusing eyes. "And I'm sorry, Brenda. I've never forgiven myself for what I did to you that summer. Out of all the bad decisions I made in high school, that one was the worst."

"Do you want to know what the worst part of it was?" Brenda stared at Kelly, her eyes brimming with tears. "Not that I lost my boyfriend. But I lost my best friend. My best friend. I'd never had a best friend like you, Kelly and though I've made some friends since, I've never been able to get close to anyone like that again."

"I'm sorry."

"I hated you for so long, Kelly." The tears began to slip down Brenda's face now and Kelly was surprised to find her own cheeks were wet with tears. "I blamed you for so much. I blamed you for everything. Any time something didn't go right in my life, I somehow traced it back to that summer."

"I'm so sorry."

"But I learned something, Kelly." Brenda continued as if she hadn't heard Kelly's whispered apology. "As long as I didn't take responsibility for my own actions and decisions, I'd never be able to move on with my life. I'd forever be that heartbroken seventeen-year-old kid who had been betrayed by two of the people she loved most in the entire world."

"Oh Brenda." Kelly's face crumpled, her heart breaking. She had always known she had forever scarred Brenda, but to see the raw pain and emotion written on the her face… "I was so horrible. I'm so sorry."

"I know you are." Brenda looked up at Kelly, the fire in her eyes cooling by the tears that were falling. "And I'm sorry that I allowed you and Dylan so much control over my life. But this all happened over fifteen years ago. It's time for both of us to move on. Right?"

Kelly nodded. "Dylan and I-we've never worked. After David and Donna's wedding, well, we decided to give it one last shot. I think it lasted three weeks before he left again."

"Three weeks?" Brenda's lips twisted up in a smile.

"I know. We both were pretending so hard that it was what we wanted, but it wasn't. Dylan's a free spirit. For him to stay in once place… Well, you know Dylan. It just doesn't work."

"Yes, I know Dylan." Brenda furrowed her brow in confusion. "But I thought, well, I thought…" She glanced meaningfully over at Sammy who was still happily coloring, completely oblivious to Kelly and Brenda's conversation.

"Sammy?" Kelly's eyes widened incredulously, then lowered her voice when her son glanced up at the sound of his name. "You actually thought Dylan was Sammy's father?"

"Well, yeah." Brenda looked even more lost now. "Both Brandon and I assumed… I mean, when he was born Dylan was around and acting so protective…"

Kelly shook her head, her shoulders shaking with laughter. Suddenly things were starting to make a bit more sense. Brandon suddenly distancing himself from her shortly after Sammy was born, the strained telephone conversations with Donna whenever she brought Dylan up. They probably all thought Dylan was some sort of deadbeat dad who completely abandoned her after Sammy was born.

"Dylan is not the father." Kelly let out a long sigh. "Sometimes I think it might be less complicated if he were, but he's not."

"But Ryan said you told him it was someone you dated in high school."

"I dated a lot of guys in high school, Brenda." Kelly rolled her eyes. "I was vague with Ryan because I really didn't want to delve into my personal history with him just yet. I wanted to find out how serious it was going to be."

"So who is the father?" Brenda inquired. "If you don't mind me asking."

"Oh, I don't mind. He and I, well, we weren't really in a relationship at all. We bumped into each other one night and started talking. There was far too much alcohol involved and I was incredibly lonely. One thing led to another and I found myself in a position that I hadn't imagined being in ever again."

"One night stand?"

Kelly nodded. "Do you remember Kyle?"

"Kyle? Kyle Conner? I thought he was gay! Everybody did."

"Nope. Not gay." Kelly shook her head. "Not by a long shot. He was confused – really confused – back in high school, but never gay. Back then he explained it to me that he just wasn't sure what he was in to but he knew he wasn't ready for a sexual relationship. That was part of the reason why he and his girlfriend from Beverly Hills High had split up. She wanted it but he didn't."

"Wow. The roles reversed. That's a first."

"Uncommon, but not the first." Kelly deferred.

"So Kyle's the father?"

"Yeah. Kyle's the father. After all the hubbub of me having a baby seemed to die down we decided we might give it a try at a relationship, but it didn't work out and we went our separate ways. As much as he wasn't ready for a sexual relationship in high school, he wasn't ready to become a father four years ago."

"Do you still talk to him?"

"Every now and again when he calls." Kelly admitted. "I don't call him, though. Amazingly, Sammy has only asked me about him once or twice and only in the past six months or so. I've not wanted to really introduce him into Sammy's life until he proves he'll be around. Right now, though, he's out gallivanting about doing 'charity work' of some sort. Like I said, not ready to be a father."

"I can see that." Brenda shook her head in amazement. "That's got to be tough on both you and Sammy."

"A little bit, but at least I know exactly where Sammy and I stand with him. There haven't ever been any mixed messages, which is nice for once in my life."

"I hear that."

"Mommy," Sammy had approached the two young women, his eyes widened dramatically.

"Yes, sweetie?" Kelly lowered herself to Sammy's level. "What can I do for you kiddo?"

"I'm hungry."

"And I'm starving!" Kelly agreed enthusiastically. "What do you say we go see if we can find your auntie at the Peach Pit?"

"Really, the Peach Pit?" A huge, joyous grin lit up Sammy's face. "Will Gran'pa Nat be there?"

"I'm sure he will." Brenda smiled down at the young boy. "And probably saving us a booth, if I'm not mistaken."

"Come on, let's go." Kelly grabbed Sammy's hand, then looped her arm through Brenda's as they headed out the door to enjoy their dinner together.

Just as the door shut behind them, the phone began to ring, Kelly's machine picking up after the fifth ring. "Hi, you've reached Kelly" Kelly's voice announced.

"Silver." Silver chimed in.

"And Sammy!" His voice was by far the most enthusiastic.

Kelly's voice came back on the line. "We're not here right now, but leave a message and we'll call you back." A beat. "Maybe."

"Wow. Nice message, Kel." A familiar voice came through the outdated machine's speaker. "I'm starting to think you're avoiding my calls, though. Give me a call back. We need to talk."

Author's Notes:

Ta-da! Dylan is no longer Sammy's father. Suddenly it's not quite so messy if I have a BD and BK reunion, right? So let me know what you think. Oh, and BTW, officially I do believe Kyle was gay but back in the day they couldn't quite touch that storyline without getting a lot of heat for it. But, he was the only guy that Kelly could technically have history with back in high school that fit my requirements of: 1) Not being Dylan. 2) Not being Brandon because he cannot be a deadbeat dad 3) Not being David because that's just ewwie! 4) not being Steve because he's happy with Janet, 5) was mentioned in the actual show and 6) not a total jerk. So anyway… There you go. And I got it up before five people could review. ;)