Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.

Chapter Thirty-Five

New Year's was exactly like I told Brandon it would be. The weather cleared so after another campus tour and taking them to lunch in a little café Bren and I had found we had arrived back at the house for a cookout, walk on the beach and then a fire pit where we watched the fireworks over the waves. It was a relaxed night. Kelly had stayed clear of me not in a obvious way but in a way two people who had aired out and said everything that needed to be said, I had nothing left in way of emotions from me for her besides some stinging resentment for Bren's treatment. Kelly seemed to have got to that place too, by realising that the person she wanted was Bren's that he doesn't exist without her by my side, she'd have never got him no matter how much we could have tried. I think she sees that now.

At New Years I kissed Bren, I didn't care if they watched, it was our home the start of our new beginning. 1993 had been a year of nothing but pain; losing Bren, my father, and me along the way, 1994 was going to be different. It was going to start by kissing my girl as our scared of fireworks puppies hid in our laps. That night she stayed with me, it was a big step for her to willingly share how close we were. It was a big step because she knew that somehow it would get around the gang.

Bren and I had no classes together our timetables were packed though we had managed to both have nothing on Friday's by some miracle. I dropped her on campus before I headed to my buildings, we didn't share even a library or a common quad. We were in different worlds. We missed each other during the day but it meant that our evenings were now full of sharing are days, who we met, what we learnt. We would chat as we walked the dogs on the beach each afternoon, while we made dinner together and then we would start our reading's, the never ending reading's. Bren shared my room half the time we never did anything more than kiss but after her shower or bath I'd find her wandering in.

We met new people and on our first Friday night we both decide to go to a place at Pacific Beach that some of our class I guess friends acquaintances had casually invited us to. We stay close to each other, we find her drama friends first and I'm introduced as her partner- house partner, bed partner, life partner I'm not sure but it was ownership it was a title and I was claiming it as my own. When we run into some of my classmates I introduce her with the same title. I don't like parties and I guess the restaurant slash bar is a type of party but Bren dances with me all night, she stays close and I spend most of my night with my hands on her hips- it's a good night.

That weekend some of my class friends come down to our beach, which we hear is the super rich area, Del Mar to Beverly Hills it follows us. Bren and I don't care about that it's the place that felt like home full stop end of story. They come for a surf with us in the morning and then Bren invites them to stay for Sunday brunch. It's late afternoon by the time they finally leave- neither of us mind. Bren found a gardening buddy and I found people who loved the ocean as much as I do. Tuesday it's Bren's classmates who invade our home for a group scene they are practicing. I organise the dinner while they rehearse, half way through Bren drags me into the debate about a characters motivation. Her friends are shocked to find out that I'm a bibliophile especially for the classics, my girl just beams at me. Like my classmates it seems that we both have found common ground in our individual set of friends.

On the Friday we drive up to Beverly Hills, we drop in on Nat for a late lunch then head to the Bungalow. It's not weird in the slightest when I put our bags into the small second room; it's not my home anymore. That night we get guilted into attending a campus event and we are shocked to learn that Andrea is pregnant. There are congratulations all round though I know both Bren and I feel it's a little out of character for the old chief of The Blaze; the passionate supporter of safe sex in junior year.

Brandon comes with us to the Walsh's for breakfast the next morning and it's another relatively nice meeting- I swear that's Jim's game. Bren and I continually catch ourselves being affectionate and I'm sure it doesn't pass either of her parents notice. They don't say anything or give us even a look.

Saturday afternoon we take Nat out for a hike with the puppies, his doctor wants him to start exercising more and Bren and I are committed to making sure our second father, honouree uncle is looked after. It's Brandon's turn on Saturday night, he wants twin time which is us ordering Chinese and sitting around listening to music.

When there is a knock at the door after dinner neither Bren or a I are surprised that Kelly is there with dessert. They haven't said they are dating but it's clear that something is starting, that night as we lay in bed I ask Bren how she feels about it.

"I think it's inevitable. She always wanted something to happen with him, like with you. I don't mean to sound bitchy but I feel Kelly is like goldilocks; she's trying to figure herself out through guy's. Maybe she'll like the Kelly Brandon brings out in her the best, maybe that one will feel like that's who she really is or maybe that won't feel right either. Regardless, I love my brother but he hasn't been serious about a girl for longer than a few weeks in years. If she can get him to take a relationship seriously then I can put the past in the past, like we have done."

"We didn't ignore it though, I apologised we worked through it, she hasn't done that with you."

"She may never do that with me, or maybe when she feels what we feel for each other with someone she'll get what that could have felt like for me. Kelly has never been great at empathy but when she feels it herself, when she can relate she usually does acknowledge and… well apologise might be too much but she does acknowledge that someone may have felt something different than her."

We leave after a Peach Pit breakfast, both of us are relieved when we get home, the dogs are even thrilled.

By our second visit they tell us they are dating, we both congratulate them and tell them they look happy. That weekend is full of shifts at The Pit as Nat's away on his Christmas holiday weekend from us. We arrive home exhausted and decide to spend the Sunday evening in the couch watching movies. When Bren falls asleep on the second movie I pick her up and take her to our bed. She still has her own room but she uses it mainly to hold her clothes, I'd prefer they were in here with mine.

No one knows that we aren't together officially because we are kind of. We kiss, share our home, our lives but we don't date or discuss if she's ready anymore; I told Kelly that if this is all I got then I'd be happy and I am. I've never been so happy.

On Valentine's Day we go and donate blood, I didn't do it last year I didn't know how to deal with the choice last year to think about donating. It is actually more accurate to say I was a selfish asshole who forgot how to think beyond myself, beyond instant gratification last year to give anything away to other's. Besides the blood donation it's a low key day, I buy flowers for Bren and she makes me a lasagna. It's really a day like any other.

Half her wardrobe has gradually moved into our room, it started off with a few things and before I knew it I had lost half the drawer's and wardrobe. Her hairbrush know lays on top of the drawers next to my cologne. I love seeing it.

It's a year a year since the park. I wake uneasy but Bren is her normal self. She say's nothing, doesn't act differently at all. We go to campus say our goodbyes and it's all the same. Our walk, and dinner is the same it's made me question if I got the date wrong as it's not what I expected.

That night Bren has a bath and I sit in our study trying to finish off a research paper. It must be getting late as she comes out in her blue bathrobe and asks if I'm going to bed. I look up and promise once I've brushed my teeth I'd be in.

When I open the door to our room a few minutes later I'm so confused, there's a few candles shining around the room and Bren is sitting on the bed still in her blue robe.

"What's all this?"

She smiles at me, "it's me nodding, it's me asking you to look at me and never stop."

Shocked doesn't begin to describe what I'm feeling, this is a shit day. It's a year since a very shit day. I move over to the bed and kneel in front of her, she moves over to the edge to look at me. She's smiling, I'm baffled.

"Baby it's a ye-"

"Dyl I know the day, I was dreading this day for weeks I've been dreading it knowing it was coming. Even a year since the party that I didn't go to I was dreading it. Do you know though that I waited all of that day to feel it, for the dread to open the door to that pain. I waited all day today, hell I even had a bath to see if I needed to be quiet give space to feel it. I felt nothing, not like I'm numb, as I remember the pain I just don't have access to that pain anymore besides in my memory. I've waited for nearly two months while you have meet new people, some very attractive smart women; they've been in our home, you go to class with them, study alone with them. I've waited to feel jealousy or distrust, to feel worried if you are too affectionate or not after seeing them, I haven't felt any of that. Somewhere over these last three months since we applied, got in, and moved I've healed. I haven't learned to re-trust you it wasn't intentional it's just there. This well of trust appeared and it required no effort at all. I just know like I used to but I know it even stronger now."

"So you nodding, you wanting me too look it's real then? It's-"

She leans in and kisses me, and as my hands move to pull her closer to the edge, closer to me she takes hold of them and moves them inside her robe. It's silky skin and lace that my fingertip's find and nothing else.