"Brenda and Dylan 4evar!" - Sarah Kuhn, author, tweet from sarahkuhn on the 27th of March in 2013.
xx
She arrived to the Oliviers in style, surrounded by her closest London friends and her boyfriend who had rented out a limo for the occasion. Katie had helped her to find a dress, which hugged her figure and made her feel like she had, for one evening, become a member of the Royal Family. Vee's sister had styled her hair. Sophie had done her makeup. Shane had given a toast. Levi and Benji had called to tell her that they were rooting for her from their hotel room in Oslo, where the once fairly unknown band had opened for an extremely well-known artist on the route to their own fame.
Her parents, the gang, her cousins and various other family members, plus Iris and Erica - they had all called to wish her luck, sent several gifts and spread the news across their respective social media accounts.
Steve, in particular, as the head of the KEG Alumni Association, had the entire KEG brotherhood - Keith Fucking Christopher included, who had just recently become Andrea's newest ex - plaster notices across the university campuses and theatres of Los Angeles with the weblink they could use to watch the Oliviers for themselves. Steve then ordered every single KEG brother to send her a letter of well wishes for additional luck, so that the mailman had been rather amused when he had handed her a bag of letters rivaling Santa's.
But Brenda already felt lucky when the flashes of the paparazzi landed on her, standing next to Dylan, before he stepped back to allow the focus solely on the star.
When they rolled around to her category, she was too occupied with silently counting all the notable names in theatre and film sitting near her to hear the result, until Dylan stood up and clapped loudly.
Then he whooped, for she had won.
She, Brenda Analiese Walsh, the girl who was once required to defend her leading lady role against a pathetic, vindictive rumor created by a sore loser, had won an Olivier on her first nomination. Though she did not receive a standing ovation, she nearly fainted at the recognizable names who did stand for her win - including her former director Roy Randolph, who came up to her in congratulatory praise following the ceremony and still looked as handsome as ever.
But not half as handsome as Dylan, who appeared so mouthwatering in his chosen formal ensemble that they had barely stepped inside their home before she had thrown herself onto him and walked him backwards into their bedroom.
She could die happy, she decided, especially when he chose to celebrate by bringing her back to the English seaside and pleasuring her quite literally along the sea.
She felt certain that she had forgotten either her brother or her boyfriend in her speech, but they both assured her that she had not. She then deduced it must have been her parents, who told her that they had secured a copy of the ceremony and she had indeed mentioned them. Shane, too, assured her that she had thanked all relevant RADA instructors and a handful of past directors. It wasn't until she was lying next to Dylan a few nights later in their cottage rental that she realized she had forgotten to mention her first drama teacher at her Minneapolis middle school; when she frantically texted Bobby of the slip, he replied that it was an unimportant addition and added that the whole Walsh clan had watched her win.
The Londoners were again visited by Erica, for a weekend during the start of her summer holidays, in which they informed her of their extensively contemplated decision.
"Sis, we have gone over this and over this and Bren and I have decided that we want Brandon to adopt Sammy," Dylan told her whilst they ate Indian takeaway from the restaurant on the corner.
"What?" Erica asked, her dropped jaw causing bits of lamb curry to fall onto her plate. "Why? You two would be excellent parents!"
"Bren will be," Dylan passionately agreed, "it's just -" he glanced to Brenda.
"And so will Dylan. But, look, Erica, it's not that we don't want kids or that we don't love you and Sammy, okay?" Grabbing a binder from the counter, Brenda removed a few papers and laid them out in front of the annoyed redhead. "This is my planned schedule for the next six months, this is Dylan's, this is Brandon's and this is Kelly's," she pointed to each one. "Do you see the difference?"
Erica gaped down at the paper. "The Walsh's schedule isn't half as crazy as either of yours. Fuck, how do you have time for sex?"
"Oh trust me, we have no problem in that department," Dylan smirked.
Brenda swatted his leg in response.
"Well we don't!" he defended.
"Sammy isn't old enough to make his own decision right now, Erica," she continued, "and we both agree that we will not take him away from the woman who has been there every time he's been sick or every time he's cried. He's seen Bran much more these past six months than he's seen Dylan and he's already -"
"- started calling him Daddy," Dylan smiled. "It's fucking adorable. He never called me that anyway, Erica. It was always Dyl."
"At the moment, we don't have the time to raise a toddler ourselves, especially if -"
"When," Dylan corrected.
"- when we have children of our own," Brenda amended, attempting to hold onto the hope that her boyfriend felt more than she did. "We can take him for the holidays and maybe eventually a couple months of the year, but if you think my schedule is bad now, it's only going to get crazier. If Sammy grows up and decides that he wants to stay with us, then we will absolutely consider his request. Right now, we will stay in his life only as his aunt and uncle. We definitely will not put Sammy through a messy custody battle like Steve's parents did to him. We hope you understand, but if you don't, we aren't changing our minds."
"What Bren said," Dylan nodded, squeezing his girlfriend's shoulder. "Her brother Brandon is the best guy I know and trust me, sis, Sammy will be lucky to have him for a dad."
Erica glowered for a moment with her arms crossed and her gaze reexamining the schedules.
"Kelly's on a more balanced work life," she muttered, "Brandon's has longer hours and more weekends, but it still isn't terrible," she swung towards the other two, "then we have Dyl going to all these water conferences -"
"They're called marine pollution prevention seminars," he cut in.
"- and fuck, Brenda, I don't know how you can possibly sleep. You have one, two, three, four tours in six months alone? All these rehearsals? A whole bunch of late nights and early mornings? Well fuck, if I'd realized that, I wouldn't have demanded you raise Sammy on a more frequent basis. I guess it was selfish of me to ask." Erica sat back with a sigh. "I need to do what's best for Sammy. The chances of me raising him are slim; okay, they're fucking nonexistent. I can't ask Bren to do it when she barely has time for sex -"
"Yeah, that's not true," Dylan inserted, receiving a glare from Brenda that he answered with a sheepish smile.
"- and I'm not gonna make Dylan here do it on his own whenever Bren's out of town. So I guess I just have to accept the fact that Kelly is his mother. And Brandon is way better than Sammy's piece-of-shit sperm donor," she groaned, throwing her head back against the chair.
Brenda now knew that Sammy's biological father had been Erica's old, abusive drug dealer, though she still did not know the details of his name, for Erica became rather frightened when the question was asked.
"Erica, maybe you could talk to Kelly? Hash out your past and see that she really is trying to be a better person than she was?" Brenda suggested gently. "She was also still a teenager then. People do mature sometimes."
"I'm not looking to spend more time around Kelly Tay - Walsh than I need to, Bren, no matter how much she's allegedly matured, but maybe I'll consider it for the future."
That was not what Brenda wanted to hear. Still, she supposed it was better than having Erica upset with either herself or Dylan - not that their decision would have changed either way.
She missed him immensely during his trip to San Diego in the last week of June, where his initiative presented their marine research to some of the top leaders in the world during yet another hectic week of rehearsals for her, but no sooner had he been gone than Dylan returned to her arms and their bed.
Kicking off a midsummer of mini tours across the continent - some of which Dylan would be able to attend, others which he regrettably could not due to his own work schedule - Brenda fed him a bite of her chocolate Belgian waffle as they strolled alongside Shane, Katie and Theo Fletcher following a performance in which she and Shane starred whilst Theo directed.
"We have the weekend free," Shane commented when Katie stopped to paint a picture of the Bruges town square which melded the past with the present in automobiles and horse carriages driving around the cobbled streets, "let's pop round the station and go to Paris. Perfect place for practicing our French accents, Bren. We can go Thursday after the morning show."
"I do love Paris," Katie sighed, pausing the strokes of her paintbrush over her canvas. "It's an artist's dream. To imagine your work on the walls of the Louvre among all those masterpieces crafted throughout history by the greatest artists of our time -"
"It'll happen, babes," Shane told her with a kiss to her brow. "First the National Gallery, then the Louvre."
Katie thanked him with a brush of her hand over his hair, giggling when she noticed the spot of paint near his forehead.
"Dylan, would that be okay with you?" Brenda asked, attempting to hide her own excitement at the thought of returning to Paris, this time with her man on her arm.
She had visited a few times since her summer program with Donna, but always for work and never with a significant other. She had often wondered if there would be a difference.
"Absolutely," Dylan smiled, kissing her chin.
"We're in," she told Shane, who then confirmed the presence of the delighted Theo.
But when she and Dylan arrived at the station that Thursday afternoon as planned, none of the three appeared.
She texted Shane, who apologized and said he had a conflicting agenda - a likely story, since their schedules were similar and everyone involved in the tour had been allotted an open weekend before they moved on to the next country.
"Dylan, all three of our friends just backed out of Paris. Shane claims he's busy, Katie said the same and Theo pretended that we never even discussed it, which is ridiculous because we all know he was right there when Shane asked. What's going on?" Brenda asked with a suspicious glance as he grabbed the handle of her suitcase.
"Nothing, Bren. Guess their plans changed. But ours haven't, so all aboard!" Dylan jumped onto the steps of the train, pulling her up with him.
Suspicious of the obvious lies of her friends but enthralled for their journey, Brenda sat watching the breathtaking Belgian and then French countryside roll by in the comfort of Dylan's arms.
He had booked them a room at the Hôtel de Crillon, which she would have scolded him for wasting his money on if she had not been enamored with the building from the moment she had set her gaze upon it. Overlooking the Place de la Concorde at the foot of the Champs-Élysées with a magnificent view of the city's prominent tourist attraction, the luxury hotel established during the early nineteen hundreds sat in a building originally built in the eighteenth century. Its exterior seemed more reminiscent of an East Coast historical museum than a hotel, Valerie noted when Brenda texted her a picture of their accommodations; its interior may as well have been the golden decorations of an opulent palace, with a ceiling painted to resemble a cloudless sky.
Dylan asked her which activities she had partaken in the last few times she had been in Paris and then proceeded to take her to the places she had not been. They started out in the Catacombs, where he snapped a photo of Brenda mimicking the skulls around them before she steadied him over cheese wedge steps. They cruised along the Seine, stepped into cathedrals which were art unto themselves, bought trinkets for everyone they knew and snogged along the Pont des Artes footbridge. In their travel tradition, they explored the bookshops of Paris, finding one begun by a Londoner and leaving with a bag full of first-editions for their rapidly expanding collection. They opened Dylan's laptop in a café to log onto Skype and show Paris to Madeline and Steve, with the little girl informing them exactly which souvenir they should acquire for her.
It turned out to simply be their own train tickets, so that Madeline could take the paper to school when she returned in the autumn season and announce to her classmates that she had received a ticket to Paris to find her dear Grandmama.
Steve reminded her that she had only three grandmothers: one of whom lived in San Diego, one right there in Los Angeles and then Cindy Walsh, in Melbourne. His insistence did not convince Madeline, who told him that he had simply forgotten her fourth grandmother, a Russian aristocrat who awaited her arrival in Paris.
Dylan said he thought Madeline had grown out of that phase, to which Steve replied she had fallen back into it during a recent rewatch of Anastasia with Hannah and the Silver girls. Steve then blamed Brenda for his daughter's fantasies, who protested but inwardly knew that he was likely correct.
She had carried plenty of her own fantasies over the years, including one where she had claimed victory in the second World War by simply jumping out of a plane.
On the last day before Dylan and Brenda planned to meet up with the tour for the next show in Luxembourg, they spent the morning wandering through a scenic nearby village which instantly captured her attention and the lines of her journal.
Dylan would not, however, tell her where he had made their city reservations for that evening, simply that he had made reservations for that evening.
"But what if I wear the wrong clothing to the restaurant?" Brenda frowned, browsing through the summer dresses she had hung in the closet.
"You won't, babe. Check the bed," he replied as he shaved his beard down to the stubble her hands had grown to love.
She walked over to the grand bed to see a bag she swore had not been there before, in which she withdrew a one-shoulder, golden dress that glittered in the light without being considered gaudy.
"Oh my God. Dylan! This must have cost you a fortune! I can't wear this!"
"That's the same thing you said about the necklace, Bren," he noted with his head sticking out partway through the open bathroom door, "and now it's your favorite. You can always rewear the dress for future awards shows, if that would make you feel better, and you never let me buy you stuff. I know it's your size, I know you love it, so just put it on and don't even think about the price tag because the amount of love I feel for you can't be priced."
He did have a point, she reluctantly realized, fingering the necklace he had given her on her last night in San Francisco which ensured she frequently carried the ocean with her.
She would certainly be rewearing this dress, she decided as she looked over her reflection in the mirror, no matter how many pounds the purchase had cost her obstinate boyfriend with more money in his bank account than he knew what to do with.
She had also come into a sizable amount of money in her skyrocketing career, but she would have never spent her earnings on a price tag like she assumed had initially hung on the dress bearing a label of a prominent fashion house and he knew it, too.
They dined at the Alain Ducasse Au Plaza Athénee under an enormous crystal chandelier which seemed to catch glimpses of a hidden rainbow. She tasted food that she had only ever dreamt of, an exquisite culinary experience which she felt certain she would not encounter again. He smiled at her in-between bites of his own meal and their shared chocolate dessert, his feet tickling her leg under the table.
He then took her in the direction of an elusive building, which they had both found only once before.
"Dylan, I'm sure this is where Donna and I were when we found the house. I know it's the right area," she said, glancing around in frustration and determining that they would have had better luck locating the house in daylight - or using the navigation system on their phones, which he had unfortunately taken from her so that she would not attempt the simple way out.
A little better luck, that is, for it was never easy to find that maison.
"Keep looking, Bren," he chuckled.
"Well, do you see it?" she countered.
"Not yet. Keep looking," he insisted.
Just when she had opened her mouth to suggest they return to their hotel, she found it.
Esteemed French author Honoré de Balzac's maison - closed, of course, but found nevertheless.
"There it is! See? I told you it was right over here." Met with responsive silence, she added, "Dylan?"
She turned from the house, looking to see her oddly nervous boyfriend holding out a stapled packet of papers.
That explained the use of his satchel with his otherwise formal attire, she thought.
"Bren, I've seen that adorable look you have when you come home with a fresh script. You immediately start preparing for a whole new adventure. That's the way I feel about writing, about reading, about the sea. I'm sure it's the way you feel about reading, too. We've had a few adventures ourselves. I'm ready for a massive one. Will you do me a favor and read this?"
She took the script from him, her curious eyes skimming over the words in Katie's distinguishable cursive which spelled out: "In She, He Trusts."
For years, I have trekked through a meaningless life, burning with the love that I lost when I lost you. Now, I have been reignited with the love you have permitted me to help us both find again, the one that has carried us through spring dance panda dresses and Palm Springs denials. In all these years, you never believed I loved you. And I did. I did so much. I do. You should be just a woman, just a girl I knew in high school, just another notch on my belt. But you aren't and you never have been. I always made a point in trusting no one, until I was certain of the heart to which I opened mine. My love for you scared me so. I turned my head, backed away, didn't want you to know; yet my heart, no longer free, was forced to bear the love it could not show and silently ached for thee, until you at last returned to my embrace. It is absurd to pretend that one cannot love the same woman always, for Brenda Analiese Walsh has controlled my heart all these many years and will continue to do so long after we have both departed. For just as the ocean rolls in a fresh foam, you rolled into my life in a vivacious explosion of wonder and taught me to trust. To love. To love you with the passion of a hundred thousand poets and playwrights. And then you gave me another chance, allowing our script to begin anew, allowing me to learn to trust again, to learn to love my Brenda the way she was always meant to be loved.
A hand shook against Brenda's lips, the script trembling in the other, as she turned back towards Dylan. Overwhelmed by the combined words of his favorite poet, the writer whose house they stood near, a poem he had once read in the CU student union, her first play of note, her performance at the Lyceum when he initially found her again and his own poetic lines, she merely stared at his determined expression.
"I don't want to just talk about getting married, Bren. I want you to be my wife. I want to be your husband. I want all of our friends and family to know that it's never too late to make the right choice, to turn back the hands of time and fix a love that never should've been in disrepair. We've turned to a new chapter; I want us to write a volume, together."
He bent on one knee, a hand in hers and the other withdrawing a velvet box from the pocket of his trousers.
"Bren, I kneel before you with all that I am or with all that is already yours and ask, will you let us write a whole bookshelf of volumes? Will you marry the surfer who threw the potted plant and then fell permanently in love with the new girl from Minnesota who helped him to not be such a loner?"
"Oh my God. Is that -" her finger shook, pointing to the ring.
"Your great-grandma Niamh's ring. Yeah," he smiled, displaying the Edwardian era ring in his hand. "I heard you talking to that girl in Cork about it. I called Jimbo up to see if it was still in the family. It was, with your uncle Simon. I got it off of them at your brother's rehearsal dinner, along with Jimbo's blessing, if you can believe that. Also Bran's and Cindy's, plus Grandpa Beevis and Val for good measure, so I think I'm pretty covered. Now it's just up to you."
She burst into tears, covering her face with her hand as she shook her hair.
"Brenda? Babe?" He squeezed her hand, voice lifting in concern. "It isn't too soon, is it? We've known each other for so long and wasted so much time. You said after Brandon's wedding and - I mean, it is after his wedding. I didn't want to waste more time. I didn't think. Maybe it is too soon. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry? Are you taking it back?" Her question came out muffled from her cupped palm.
"No; I don't - I mean, it's just, well, you're bawling. I don't think people usually answer a proposal like that." He spoke quietly, his voice reverberating with an uncertainty which seemed almost childlike.
"I haven't answered."
"You haven't?" He inhaled slowly, clutching her hand.
"No, you dork, I haven't." She slowly removed her hand, revealing a beaming grin which outshone the lights that blinked on the Eiffel Tower showcased in the distance.
"But, you're sobbing," he repeated helplessly.
"Do you know how many girls can say their first love is a total heartthrob and complete romanticist?"
"I don't know. I haven't taken an opinion poll."
"Very few." Her glistening eyes glanced at him lovingly, wondering if he, too, had been transported back to a hotel in Beverly Hills of the nineties. "Even if I wanted to turn you down, I'd be doing a disservice to hopeless romantics everywhere after this script."
His throat bobbed noticeably.
"Does that mean you'll -"
"What do you think?" she grinned.
"Bren," he whined, swinging her hand, "it doesn't count unless you say it."
"Well, that's dumb."
"Brenda."
"Oui, bien sûr, je t'espouserai."
"I thought you said your French was rusty." He crooked his head.
She pointed to a tour group congregated underneath the luminescent glow of a lamppost. Having evidently overheard their exchange, an excited woman donned in the highest fashion held an open notebook, in which she'd quickly written the French translation for Brenda's planned English response.
"I see." He lifted himself from the ground, amused. "Now in español."
"Claro que me - me -" she hesitated, bit her lip and tried to recall an old Spanish lesson which recited vocabulary deemed unnecessary at the time.
"Casaré," he whispered, tickling his fingers through her hair.
"Claro que me casaré contigo."
"And in English." His arms engulfed her waist.
"Damn right, I'll marry you."
He closed his eyes. Burying his nose into her hair, he breathed in her hibiscus shampoo.
"Three languages to erase three breakups."
"You!" Her hand whipped outward. He captured it in his, then placed the ring on her respective finger with a kiss to the band.
"I finally got you to say yes." She heard the bittersweet crackle in his voice and caressed his back.
"You never asked before."
"No, but I would've," he whispered brokenly.
She leaned back, staring at him.
"What?"
His eyes opened, appearing moments away from swimming in a fountain.
"When you were in Prague, I -" he took a deep breath, a tremor running over his shoulders, "I bought a ring. I -" he slid a fist through his hair, "I had it in my rain jacket the day we - the day I - the day we gave up our home."
A block of ice left her veins and travelled into her chest, leaving her on the brink of immobility.
"You had planned to propose?"
"Yeah. I was gonna take you, well," he laughed, gesturing to the city, "here. I was gonna surprise you with a weekend trip to Paris when you got back from the tour and propose, well, also here, actually." He pointed to the ground. "But instead, I got plastered, jealous, lost every chance I had with you and in turn, lost all of my dreams, including this one." He sighed, his hand going to her hair.
"You've remembered your planned proposal for nine whole years?" she asked, stunned.
"More like ten now, Bren, but oui. I guess I just ended up following through ten years after the fact. And I figured since I let my jealousy over your friendship with Wachinski get between us before and fuck up everything, I'd enlist him to suggest a Paris trip he never planned to go on," he confessed with a smug smile.
"I knew something was up!" She shook her head.
"But hey, it worked." He kissed her knuckle. "Got you here, didn't I?"
"God, I love you," she breathed.
"Nowhere close to how much I love you." He traced her nose.
"You'd be surprised."
Tucking her head into his neck, she examined her ring with a contented sigh.
"It looks like the ocean."
"I know," he grinned, pulling her even tighter, "your great-granddad had excellent taste. No wonder you love this ring; it was practically made for you years before your grandparents were even born."
Her mother had been correct. Dylan did wear his heart in his eyes, for his eyes sparkled more than Brenda believed she had ever seen them do as he also surveyed the ring.
"We're engaged!" she squealed, throwing her head back.
"Fucking finally." He dropped her downward in a passionate liplock. "Brenda Analiese Walsh is finally gonna become my Brenda Analiese McKay. Only took, what, about eighteen years?"
"Well, they say the greatest adventures take a bloody long time."
"Are you sure they say that?" he asked, amused.
"If they don't, I do," she lifted a shoulder in response.
"Then I expect we'll have a fucking extraordinary one," he smiled with a kiss to her forehead.
Resting her head on his shoulder with his arm around hers, they walked back in the direction of their hotel.
Coming across the lights splashed across the annual Paris Tuileries Funfair set up by the lush greenery of the Jardin des Tuileries, Dylan asked if she would be interested in attending for one more late evening activity.
She was, of course, and thus, they found themselves sitting along a spectacular view of the city whilst Brenda swore the English Channel sloshed about in her head.
"Shit, why did I agree to this?" she asked, fighting to not look down.
"Agree to it? Bren, you're the one who suggested it, just like last time," Dylan laughed, sliding her closer against him.
"Just because I suggest something doesn't mean we have to do it," she replied.
"Even when you say 'Look, Dylan, a Ferris wheel! I bet it has a great view of Paris. Baby, we have to go on it now that we're both at the top of the world'?"
"It seemed a lot less terrifying from down below," she frowned, attempting to calm her trembling hands and quaking heart.
"Then next time I'll just ignore your request to do anything that takes us above a city," he assured, "but you weren't wrong that this is an incredible view."
"You aren't looking at the view."
"Oh yeah, I guess it has a nice view of the city, too," he replied, turning to check for himself instead of continuing to gaze at her.
Feeling immensely more protected in his arms, she chanced a look outside of the car.
Paris sparkled before them, in all her magical wonder which had captivated many a writer and an artist, including Honoré de Balzac and Brenda's fiancé, Dylan McKay.
"Yes," Brenda reluctantly agreed, "it is quite beautiful."
She felt much better when they were back on land and, though she told herself that she would never go on a third Ferris wheel, Brenda knew that was undoubtedly a lie if the adventure beckoned strongly enough.
"Oh and Bren," Dylan began as he picked her up to carry her back to the hotel when her knees started to shake in fatigue from the amount of walking they had done in a single day, "I can one hundred percent confirm that Paris - la Ville Lumière - is immensely incredible when you're with the one you love. When you're," he grinned, "when you're with your fiancée."
Then he set his lips on hers, right underneath the starry sky, though it seemed more like they had just blasted into the galaxies beyond without any plans to return.
-x
The script is a mishmash of the following:
His favorite poet: Byron, of course. / The writer whose house they stood near: Balzac. / A poem he had once read in the CU student union: Jack Grapes. / Her first play of note: Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. / Her performance at the Lyceum: Jesus Christ, Superstar. / And Dylan McKay's own words.
Some readers will be immensely displeased with BD's decision regarding Sammy. I understand not everyone will approve. After weighing all of the options, this one seemed the most characteristic of BD and the one that came out whilst writing, especially as Brenda's hectic schedule has been a constant since the very first chapter of this story. Can't recall whether the custody battle of Steve's parents is canon, but it did seem entirely possible. This won't be BD's only shot at a family. And it could be worse - could've been Gina showing up with Dylan's long-lost kid.
Bren losing her first Olivier nomination would have been much more realistic, but eh. The Oliviers also didn't take place after BK's wedding date in reality and may not have been streamed live, so it's a bit of playing.
Crystal: Thank you for the edit! I changed it in the previous chapter. It's been ages since I watched anything regarding Matt/Kelly, so you have a good point.
Chapter 28 may be a bit of a wait. Reposting this for those of you who aren't reading Seven: I go on holiday/vacation for two weeks beginning on Wednesday and plan to focus more on my travel writing than fic writing during that time (unless the right brain has other plans.) Those of you interested in following along on the travels can visit takemetowanderland dot com or April's Adventures in Wanderland on FB, where I combine my two greatest passions: writing and travel, plus photography.
As always, thanks a million for the readership, reviews, alerts, favourites, discourse, plot ideas, etc.