Legacy: Pieces of Eight

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Seven: Kiss of Betrayal

Susan walked her cousin down to his motorcycle as twilight began to appear on the horizon, her thoughts on everything that had happened since Alex had come to town. Either Alex was thinking the same thing or he happened to notice her musings, because he commented, "Wacky day, huh? World almost ended. How many apocalypses have you managed to avert, anyway?"

With a small laugh, Susan thought about it carefully. "Well . . . counting this one, at least four. Not counting that whole charade with the kid that was trying to get his girlfriend back," she added, wistfully remembering the battle against evil in Wisconsin. Things might be better here, but they were easier back there. Ever since she'd come here, things had been complicated. The appearance of a brother she never knew, the fact her father was plotting to kill her. . . . Sometimes, Susan missed the simplicity of the fighting.

Looking up at her cousin, she wrapped her arm around his as they climbed down the steps of the apartment building. "Hey," she said, "I'm sorry that I wasn't able to spend much time with you."

Alex grinned. "Another time," he promised, though she could tell that some seriousness was weighing him down. The loss of a second charge after only being on parole for a couple of months had hit him hard and Susan could tell just by looking at her cousin.

"I'm sorry that we weren't able to save Candace," she apologised, but Alex waved her apology away. She knew in her heart that there hadn't been anything that could've been done differently. They had all been tricked and by the time that they'd been alerted that anything was happening, Candace had already been dead, but she still felt guilty for not being able to help her cousin and his charge. "I wish we could've done something different."

"We can't change the past," Alex said after a long moment. "No matter how much we want to, sometimes things would turn out worse." Susan knew he meant with Ryan as much as he meant Candace. If things had turned out differently, then Ryan might be alive, but things might be worse off.

"Doesn't make it hurt any less," she pointed out softly as they arrived at his motorcycle and he climbed onto it, pulling on the helmet. "You going back to Wisconsin or you heading out somewhere else?"

Alex paused as he looked up at her. "I think I need to get out of here for awhile, Sue," he told her slowly. "I'm no good as a Whitelighter. Just end up getting people killed."

"It wasn't your fault," Susan offered. "If I'm not to blame for what happened to Candace then neither are you, cousin." He glanced at her as she sat down next to him on the bike, placing her hand on his shoulder. "You couldn't have done anything differently. But I understand the needing to get away part." She shrugged. "It's part of the reason why I left Chippewa Falls."

"Yeah," Alex sighed as he stood up, hugging her tightly. Susan held her cousin, knowing that this could very well be the last time she saw him for awhile. "Susan . . . who's that Bobby kid? There's something familiar about that kid that I just can't place . . ."

Susan had expected the subject of her brother to come up sooner or later before her cousin left. "Alex . . . I want to tell you who he is, I do, but . . . I can't, all right? It's too dangerous for people to know the truth about him. Even he doesn't know that I know. All I can tell you is that he is a good person and a good witch, despite his background."

Although Alex looked annoyed at the lack of information, he nodded in acceptance. "All right, I'll trust you on this one for now," he sighed. Susan smiled at him gratefully before she stood up. "But if you ever need some help, then you know I'll come running, right?"

"Yeah, I know." She chuckled as a certain thought occurred to her. "Although, now that I think about it, I think that two Dawsons might be overkill."

"Nope." Alex shook his head, grinning wildly. "On the contrary, dear cousin. It's just about enough kill." Susan laughed out loud at that and he joined in. When their laughter subsided, he looked at her for a long moment before climbing onto the bike, buckling the helmet and pulling down the shield. "Take care, Susan."

"You, too," she told him as she backed up, away from her cousin as he started up the motorcycle.

He took one last look at her as he gunned the motor and pushed himself off, riding off onto the horizon and leaving his cousin standing at the bottom of the steps, watching him leave.

With a small sigh, Susan turned around and headed back up the steps, intending to get some much-needed rest as she opened her apartment door. She could hear voices in Brooke's bedroom and she walked towards it, wondering if her best friend was all right and who was in her room. Wyatt was either at his own apartment or working at the clinic and Chris was definitely getting some rest. She'd left him sound asleep in his bedroom before going to see her cousin off.

Easing open the door, she was about to ask Brooke if everything was okay when an astonishing scene met her eyes and a gasp left her mouth before she could comprehend what was happening.

--

Brooke walked into her room to change clothes after they got back from destroying the Avenger. "Gotta love those apocalypses," she mumbled as she started to unbutton her shirt just as the door opened.

Spinning around, she found Brandon standing behind her and she sighed, redoing the button and folded her arms across her chest. "Don't you Whitelighters ever knock?"

"Some do, I don't," Brandon said with a grin. At her stony expression, the smile slowly slid from his face and he closed the door behind him. "Well, uh . . . the Elders are gonna take the destroyed amulets, put them in a safe place so that the Avenger never gets resurrected."

"That's good," Brooke commented dismissively. "Now, if you don't mind, I've had a really hard day and I would really like to get some sleep." She turned away from him, but he didn't leave. "That was indirectly telling you to get out of my room, Brandon."

"I know. I caught that, but . . ." He paused. "Brooke, I . . . I really think we need to talk about what happened before."

Suppressing a sigh, Brooke walked away from him and started flipping through her CDs absently. She needed to get rid of some of these. Half of them she hadn't listened to since she was fourteen. "Do we?" she commented, trying to concentrate on the CDs so not to pay attention to what he was saying. It was a lame attempt, but it was all she had.

"Look, what happened . . . there's a logical explanation for it," Brandon said hastily. "There's some stuff about me that you don't know . . . things that I've been sworn not to say until it's time."

"I don't care." Brooke wasn't even bothering to try and look at the CDs anymore. She stared at Brandon. "You think that we don't know that you're hiding stuff? Please! Susan and I have known since you've shown up that you're not telling us everything that we need to know. Okay, we know that. And about the other thing, nothing happened, so there is absolutely no reason that we need to discuss or even continue to even think about what nearly happened. It didn't happen, we don't need to discuss it, we're both moving on." She turned away from him.

"Is that what you want?"

Brooke's hands froze as she was about to go through the CDs again, but she said nothing. Brandon walked over to her and gently turned her around so that she was facing him.

"Is that what you want, Brooke?" Brandon asked again. "Do you want me to just forget about what happened because you didn't feel anything? Or do you just want to forget because you're afraid of what might happen?"

Swallowing, Brooke pulled away from him. "What does it matter?" she demanded, her voice shaking. "I'm not your girlfriend, Brandon! I'm not even your charge!"

Brandon shifted slightly. "That's not entirely true," he said after a long moment. Brooke stared at him. "I care about you, Brooke Murphy, a lot and if you knew everything about me, you'd know that means a lot. But you don't know why I have to keep secrets, because it's going to cause a whole lot of problems if I don't."

"But what—"

"Brooke," Brandon said softly as he reached out and touched her dark hair tenderly. Something about the feel of his hands on her face felt familiar, Brooke thought, and something clicked in the back of her mind, though she didn't realise it until a moment later. "There are some things that you need to know about me. But if . . . if Susan ever found out . . . she can't, okay? She can never find out . . ."

"I—"

Before the two of them knew what was happening, they were swept up by the passion that was slowly forming between them and Brandon moved forward, his lips capturing hers in a tender but gentle kiss. But it was a kiss that Brooke knew, that she had missed every day for over eight months, that she knew with every fibre of her being.

When they broke apart, she stared at him with wide eyes and he smiled, knowing that she knew now. "No telling?" he questioned.

"No telling," Brooke breathed, an exhilarated joy filling through her as she leaped into his arms, kissing him with a fiery passion that she had long forgotten she held inside her. A passion that had been burnt out ever since the death of the man she loved eight months previously but with one kiss, it was reawakened and burned more brightly than ever.

But neither one of them had any idea that while they were kissing, the door had opened and a small gasp emerged from a brunette witchlighter as she stared at her Whitelighter and best friend while they were kissing, holding on to each other as though their lives depended on it.

Susan couldn't believe her eyes as she stared at them. Brooke had done a great many things she wasn't proud of, Susan knew that better than anybody, but after the whole incident with her and Ryan and whoever she'd cheated on him with, she had never expected that she would do the same thing twice.

But what was worse was that Susan was now stuck in the middle once again. It was her best friend who was doing this and she was betraying her boyfriend's brother, who she was now regarding with a sisterly devotion. And she hated Brooke for putting her in the middle like this.

She was relieved more than she could say that the brothers hadn't gone with them to their apartment. It at least gave her some time to think about what she had just seen. "What to do?" she whispered softly, but the stars gave her no reply.

--Fade to Black--

End Credits

Guest stars:

Drew Berrymore as Deidre Connelly

Jack Devonport as Peter Connelly

Nate Richert as Alex Dawson

Francia Raisa as Candace

and Brian Krause as Leo Wyatt