The B/D ideas keep coming!
Red was written in third person omniscient point-of-view. Illumination has been written solely in third person Brenda's. In Knight of the Canary, I experimented with Steve's. Now, in this story – which I anticipate will be significantly shorter than Illumination and perhaps more spread out in updates – I am playing with Brandon's, whilst still maintaining Bren's. We will see how it goes.
Seven Pieces also plays with canon, in which everything that happened up until Dylan's season five intervention still occurred. The plot changed when Bren flew in for the intervention, finished out the year in London and then returned to the 90210 in the beginning of the sixth season. Take that, seasons nine and ten.
SP is loosely based on the 2002 film, Sweet Home Alabama.
xx
Proudly displayed from the window of a corner shop for as long as any local could recall or the stories shared across generations could detail, an exquisite Venetian mask encased in silk wrappings beckoned a certain expectation upon its acquisition. Etiquette dictated that it be worn amongst lords and ladies in a masquerade which outshone the societal parties of old, igniting the remaining columns of whose readership consisted solely of those boasting a lengthy heritage.
In Paris of the early twenty-first century, however, the vintage mask settled for a beautiful gathering of the city's wealthier residents, many of whom hailed from other areas of the continent and grabbed any excuse for a grandiloquent event.
She walked in on the arm of a man whose personal checking account made the Royal Family across the Channel look like commoners and cheapened the materialistic purchases of Hollywood A-listers. He possessed more royal blood than the sitting queen through both his maternal and paternal lines, though he would never hold the throne of the United Kingdom himself - a fact for which he was most grateful, content instead to work as a medical professional.
His patients paid him in succulent meals, understanding that a man set to inherit billions hardly needed a paycheck of his own. Though he often wished for one nevertheless to live off his career rather than his family fortune, he knew accepting pay would minimize the checks of his colleagues and therefore went without so that they would not.
Most were drawn in by his checkbook; she, however, had first been enamored with his eyes, then his smile and then his abs, in that exact order. She had always been attracted to men with warm brown eyes, but his were different - the color of history, perhaps, of tree bark which withstood centuries of attempted felling.
As an outsider who worked her way upward, she had truly been unaware of his status until the gossip of her castmates shared his precise standing in aristocracy. One castmate, a student to an almost fluent level of the language of money, remained shocked that he had chosen her. A few others were quick to confess to their jealousy that she successfully snagged who they insisted stood amongst the eligible bachelors of not only the continent, but of the entire world.
Stating that she cared far more about his heart than his wallet proved futile, for no one believed her motives to be that pure - though they assuredly were. She herself cared little for money, knowing firsthand the full extent of damage it often caused. She earned a significant salary on her own accord and hardly needed financial support from him, even if her payday did pale in comparison to his birthright.
Their relationship of two and a half years became the talk of French elites, English nobility and, strangely, Thai monarchs - largely due to the show's fanbase oddly acquired in Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines. By the evening of the Parisian masquerade, they dominated the headlines and could rarely dine in public without a camera pushed in front of their equally genetically blessed faces. She often found herself torn over whether she appreciated the attention or wished for the normalcy she still carried when she first escaped to the captivating city, before she'd auditioned twice for the series, improved her French skills, auditioned a third time and thereafter secured the role coveted by millions.
In a situation both unfortunate and unsurprising, the question he inquired of her halfway into the masquerade spread to the media of the world before she herself could inform her brother.
Until that evening, he had been the first to know of every milestone in her life and thus when she spoke with him into the wee hours of the morning, she found him greatly perturbed on the other side of the Atlantic.
"I swear I was gonna tell you. How was I supposed to know we'd be spied on in the garden?"
"I'm ecstatic for you, sis, honestly - incredibly annoyed I had to hear about it from our junior reporter who spends way too much time on Myspace instead of from my own sister, but still delighted. It's just, well, does he know?"
She pressed for further clarification, though both were undoubtedly aware of the yet unspoken question and the morose subject they frequently attempted to avoid.
"Know what?"
"That you're married."
She clutched her phone, pressing a palm to her temple.
"No," she answered quietly, "he doesn't."
"It's been six years, Bren. If he hasn't signed the divorce papers by now, he's not going to. I've told you over and over to take him to court and force him to sign."
"He won't have a choice. I'm going back."
He paused, the sound of rustled movement from the other end indicating he'd shifted his phone to his shoulder.
"You're going back?"
"Yeah. Come with?"
"Do you think that's the best idea?"
"Better than involving an attorney. Neither of us need that kind of attention right now - or ever."
He sighed, indicating silent comprehension that she'd uttered an excellent point.
"So? You coming or what? I know you have plenty of PTO built up. What is it they say over there? Use it or lose it? I'll pay for your flight, if that's the problem."
"Shouldn't be too hard to find something reasonable or to get the time off. It's just, going back there - Bren, I don't know."
"Please, Bran? Don't make me do this by myself. You're my –"
"Brenda –"
"- twin. I need you there."
"Dammit. You had to go and pull the twin card."
"Of course. Did it work?"
She could feel through her mobile the roll of his eyes on the other line, punctured by his second sigh of the conversation which spoke to the pro and con list he currently mentally weighed.
"When are you planning to be there?"
"I fly out on Wednesday. We've a month-long break from the series starting Monday."
"I'll see you Friday."
She smiled, inwardly thanking the twin card for its continued productive result. One swipe of the card into the sibling ATM machine and she could talk Brandon Walsh into almost anything.
"I know Andrea just moved back. I'll check about bunking at her place. But I better not run into either of them, Bren."
"She did?"
"Yeah. Rose's illness worsened and she didn't like her being alone."
"Poor Andrea." She paused, contemplating which item to purchase for her old friend in sympathy. "Trust me, they're the last people I want to see, too."
"Gonna tell the future bro-in-law?"
"I'll spare him the details and tell him I'm meeting up with you to visit Mom for Mother's Day, which isn't exactly a lie because I can visit her before my return flight. He doesn't need to know the logistics."
"The logistics like you have to see a certain guy about a certain divorce he refuses to give before you can marry the one whose ring you just accepted?"
"God, Bran, rub it in, why don'tcha?"
"I just don't want you to get trapped in a web, sis. We both know you're not the greatest at avoiding his."
She thought his comment both immensely rude and appallingly true, which then caused her to question whether her willpower could withstand the trip.
An attorney would handle the entire situation and provide the desired finale with little hassle, but as much as she despised him, she could never bring herself to put either herself or him through that kind of drama.
A plethora of opportunities had presented themselves over the years for him to make amends, to issue an apology for the immense hurt he inflicted on both herself and her brother. Instead, in the rare times they had spoken since her relocation, he continued in his persistence to persuade her of a grandiose scheme, of which he claimed he held an unwilling role.
Perhaps her mere presence would be enough to finally grant him the closure he sought and thus convince him of their shared need to move on.
A firm believer that the past should remain in the past and all possibility of a resurfaced history should only be found in fiction, she could certainly hope for it.
If they were ever to heal, they needed to permanently lock the door and toss away the key.
xx
He hated that damn card with a passion.
Truly, it wasn't the card itself he despised, but rather the implication that it represented. The slightly older of the two, he often heeded a number of his twin sister's requests and she carried no issue with using their lifelong connection to her advantage multiple times over the course of their lives.
They had both spent the last several years far from their old home in the southern half of the other side of the country and the idea of a return irritated him as much as he knew it did her.
They left for a reason, after all - one neither spoke of, though both undoubtedly let it fester in the back of their minds.
He dropped his cellphone to the metal desk, noting its placement amongst papers strewn about for easy access when required. He had a deadline to meet and if it weren't for Libby's perusal of the social media outlet during her afternoon break, subsequent scream which resulted in his sprint to hear of the matter at hand - only to be shown a picture of his glamorous sister in a Parisian garden with a rock the size of a small country sitting upon her finger - he'd have finished the article and returned home to his lonely apartment.
He had a dog, of course - a Bernese Mountain Dog boasting the sweetest face, the dampest nose and the softest fur, who always greeted him at the door with a fresh catch the moment he stepped inside, regardless of the time of day or how deep the newspaper kept him into the night.
He did think he would be good with children, though he had yet to find a woman with whom he wished to settle down and create them. Or he had yet to find a woman like that again; he did find her, once, later leaving her behind after she took a blowtorch to his spirit.
Liberty Elizabeth Morgan, as she'd introduced herself during the initial interview - Libby, she'd insist upon halfway through her internship - wrote primarily for the entertainment section of the Portland Press Herald and as such, she lived and breathed Myspace. She had taken it upon herself to learn of his alma mater, showing him which of his classmates decided to join the popular platform both Walsh twins neglected.
He found his ex's profile immediately, wondering if searching for it constituted stalking, his heart frustratingly leaping the tiniest bit when he noticed the bold black text of her relationship status read as simply Single.
She evidently dated in the time between his departure and the discovery of her status. One man appeared in a handful of photos, followed by a lengthy absence and then a second man. She appeared happy with the first and then again with the second - though he decided, perhaps selfishly, that her happiness did not quite seem to reach her eyes, as he personally experienced numerous times. Both men were unrecognizable. Both disappeared as the calendar dates wore on. Based on her status, neither managed to permanently secure her heart.
He wondered if she might still dream of him, as he involuntarily did her. He held the firmest hope that he would either see or not see her during his unwilling return with no preference in-between, a contradictory wish which heightened his irritation at the mandatory acceptance of the twin card.
Now the only one left in the office - his colleagues had earlier driven off to family meals and significant others - he finished transcribing the necessary interviews for the two-page spread due the following afternoon, typed until reaching a reasonable place to stop, grabbed his jacket and stepped into the pleasant spring air.
He considered it fitting that the siblings dubbed the sobriquet of Minnesota Twins, whose names began identically, should live in two cities that likewise carried the same sound: he, in Portland, Maine; she, in Paris, France. Both, a long distance from the home of their childhood and longer still from the location of their adolescence.
He had grown up with the seasons in Minnesota, developed a fondness for the beach in California and realized he despised a fast-paced life during a brief stint in the Capitol buildings of Washington. When he received the offer of a position at the Press Herald, he took it without hesitation. Maine offered bright colors accompanying a full list of seasons, glorious beach weather in the summer and the perfect setting for hockey in the winter. There were numerous nearby airports to choose from for visiting his sister abroad or his parents, who made the difficult decision to move back to Minnesota following the chosen pathways of their children. His best friend dropped in for a week every summer and his other best friend had been a short drive away in New Haven prior to her recent relocation. Occasionally, his oldest friend would stop in on her way up from seeing relatives in Buffalo, before returning to the other coast.
Yes, he had a good life in Maine; nay, a great life, the best of both coasts. Still, he understood that even hockey season could get lonely without someone to share the game - a family perhaps, or maybe the one person he'd never been able to forget.
Opening his laptop, he deleted the online dating profile unsubtly set up for him by Libby during her lunch hour - unsubtly because she'd declared, loudly, that she created a profile for him and that he should thank her for opening him to a long list of eligible women. Only a few years younger than he and aged within the same decade, Libby caused Brandon to feel significantly older than the age shown by his last round of birthday candles - candles set upon a cake baked by none other than Libby, who had received a text from Brenda Walsh with the precise date of her brother's birth; he afterward had a few choice words for Brenda.
He may have dated Libby Morgan in another universe - a universe hidden far beyond the viewable galaxies - but in the one which he presently resided, there lay two significant issues. Issue number one: the color of her hair. Issue number two: her eyes were all wrong.
Instead of pure blonde, her locks hued more in strawberry blonde. Instead of blue, her eyes were shaded hazel with an infrequent blue tint.
He tried to date, and he did ensure a good lay once or twice a month, but the women he met in coffee shops, libraries, museums and press conferences either looked too much like her or not enough like her.
It had been significantly easier in his teenage years. He did not believe he discarded women, exactly, just managed to quickly move on when a temporary relationship sunk after the girl chose her career hopes, crossed the ocean, departed for her hometown, left police protection, reunited with an ex, got help for a concerning emotional status or displayed extraordinary bigotry.
Her damn indecision had cost them everything and yet, he still loved her more than even he could fathom, much more than he'd felt for any of the others.
But that did not mean he was either willing or ready to go back.
Next time, he would summon the power of the twin card for a task he knew his sister would find most unpleasant and see how Brenda liked it when the tables were flipped.
In the meantime, and with a large dose of reluctance, he began to air out his suitcase, draft a correspondence to the Press Herald editor of his need for paid time off on short notice, search out an affordable ticket on his own dime instead of Brenda's, and ignore Libby's inflamed instant message divulging her annoyance that he cancelled his subscription to the dating service before giving what she considered a fair chance.
He shot back a response asking if she liked it so much, why hadn't she joined, to which Libby replied she had, secured an incredibly attractive match and now slept beside the guy after date number three - which, she told him, he could certainly use to get that stick out of his ass and no, once or twice a month did not count.
He frankly thought she sounded far too much like Brenda, particularly since she'd said the same only the past week. It was no wonder that his sister and Libby got on irritatingly well, despite their only contact existing through the Internet.
Following that bit of extra detail he informed her did not need to be shared between them, he fed Cap, cooked a simplistic seafood meal for himself - it was too late in the evening for him to try crafting something gourmet - and then settled in for an evening of platinum blonde bachelorhood offered up by the legendary Frank Capra.
Twenty minutes into the film, he realized he'd left his phone on his desk in the office, amongst the pile of papers he would deal with in the morning. The moment of rare forgetfulness confirmed what he already knew: he was most certainly unprepared to return, to see her again, to open the unwanted door back into their past he would simultaneously prefer to leave alone and find a way to repair.
Whilst watching a reporter called Stew handle his wife's pompous parents in what Brandon thought may be his third viewing of that specific film, he came to the dismal conclusion that it would have been better for both Walsh twins and their equally shattered hearts if they had never once stepped foot on Californian soil.
Broken dreams were much prettier in cinema - even if his sister's broken dream did lead her down the stone pathway to billions and his introduced him to the magnificent shores of the upper northeast.