A/N: This part will be shorter than the previous parts, but I wasn't sure how to handle it, as I wanted Part Three to end where it did, but I also wanted this conversation to be the last piece from that night – we jump to a day or two after Christmas in the next part. So I decided to just give Brenda and Dylan their own little segment here, rather than try to make the Christmas party stretch over three chapters.

That said… one of my reviewers asked if Brenda is my favorite character from 90210, and I would probably have to say she is… or at least, I like the idea of who she could have grown into as the series progressed. Unfortunately for Brenda fans, that doesn't mean that I'm going to get her and Dylan back together, make the cancer a false alarm and end all things happily within a few chapters. I tend to put my favorite character through a hell of a lot before I let them have a happily ever after, if I let them have a happily ever after.

I pushed Brenda and Kelly quickly back into being friends because I think the show beat the Brenda-and-Kelly-are-jealous-of-each-other-because-of-what-happened-with-Dylan story line to the point where they verged on beating a dead horse. It also seemed realistic to me that if Brenda really needed someone to lean on, and had no one else, and if Kelly really knew how much help Brenda needed, much like when the situation was reversed with the diet pills, I think they would gravitate towards one another again. I certainly can't see Kelly maintaining her jealousy of Brenda in that situation.

While the show certainly seemed to suggest that Dylan would drop anything for Brenda if she were in trouble, and that he'd be the first person she'd turn to, I have a little too much respect for Brenda to believe that even after she found out Dylan was sleeping with another one of her best friends and even after she found out he'd relapsed into alcoholism and now drug addiction, he'd be the first person she'd turn to. Especially given that he's made his feelings about Kelly's relationship with Brandon all too clear. I think that if Brenda were to forgive Dylan and fall right back into his arms, the relationship would go up and down on the same seesaw it did in high school, and while the writers of the TV show may have found that interesting… it just doesn't seem like a healthy relationship to me.

I guess I just wanted to share my thoughts on why things are progressing so slowly here, and now that I've ranted for awhile, back to the story.

Part Four

The sounds of her friends filing out of the house reached Brenda's ears but didn't register any sort of reaction. The bedroom she'd fled to, the room she'd sought out as an oasis away from the memory Claire's words… "Kelly used to date Steve and Dylan… And Brenda used to date Dylan, and Val used to do something with Dylan," … the bedroom wasn't hers any more.

Her pictures didn't line the mirror; Val's did. Her stuffed animals didn't cover the bed. Mr. Pony was nowhere to be found, although there was the stuffed Mrs. Pony that Brenda had bought for Val after Val fell out of the tree in the Walshes' front yard and broke her ankle. They'd been eleven, then, and Val was already moving on from stuffed animals. She'd even mocked Brenda for being so "kiddish" as to think she'd want one. Still, Mrs. Pony had survived the move to Buffalo, and the move to Los Angeles, so it must have meant something to Valerie at some time.

Brenda picked the pony up off the vanity and threw it hard across the room, watching as the stuffed animal flew out the window. She hadn't realized that it was open, but she wasn't sorry.

I hope the damn thing landed in the dirt, she thought angrily. I hope it rains too. Let Val find Mrs. Pony in the yard, covered in mud, when she gets home from wherever she is, because I can guarantee you she is not in Buffalo.

A knock sounded at her door, and Brenda knew without asking that it was Dylan, coming to try to explain the whole thing to her, or to apologize, or to yell at her for not reading his letters, or all of the above.

"Bren?"

She wasn't wrong.

"Go away."

"No."

"Trust me, you don't want to wake my father up," Brenda purposely raised her voice, hoping to do just that. If her father caught Dylan at her bedroom door, Jim Walsh was likely to chase him out of the house and down the block with one of the spare little league bats he kept in the closet. The image made her giggle for a minute, but the laughter evaporated when she saw the doorknob begin to turn. She hadn't locked the door.

"I. Do. Not. Want. To. Talk. To. You," she hissed as Dylan stepped into the room. "I don't know how much clearer I can make that."

"I know you don't want to talk to me," he sighed, leaning against the door. "And I don't blame you for that. But I need you to listen to me."

"I don't want to listen to you either."

"Brenda…" Dylan sighed again, running a hand through his hair. Fortunately, he was keeping his distance. Still, Brenda wished she hadn't thrown Val's stuffed animal out the window, if only so that she could throw it at him instead. "I think you at least owe me five minutes."

"Excuse me?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Brenda's voice dropped, venom dripping from her every word, and Dylan knew he'd said exactly the wrong thing.

"I owe you?"

Experience told him that when Brenda yelled and made a scene, it meant that they would eventually get past whatever the fight was about. Even "I hate you both. Never talk to me again" had really meant "I'm hurt and angry and I need some time."

This soft, low voice was dangerous. There was anger in her words that was sharper and more intense than he'd ever heard it before.

"I owe you?" she repeated. "I owe you. Dylan, I don't owe you a damn thing."

"Brenda, I didn't mean it like that."

"Yes, you did."

If looks could kill, Dylan was pretty sure he'd be greeting the devil ten seconds after meeting her eye.

"Bren…"

"Because somehow, for the last five years, I always come off as the bad guy here," she continued. "In Palm Springs, when I found another girl in your room, a room you rented specifically to have sex…"

"With you."

"I was the bad guy for thinking you were cheating on me," Brenda ignored him. "Even though you never actually denied it. When I got scared about our relationship, you told me to get over it. When I tried to be your friend instead of your girlfriend, you wouldn't have it. When I snuck around to see you, you wanted me to come clean. When I came clean and needed a place to stay because of it, you did everything you could to get me out of your house. When I went to Paris because you asked me to, you started seeing my best friend behind my back…"

"You cheated too!"

"I saw Rick twice, and he wasn't your best friend! I would never date your best friend, even if we had broken up, which we hadn't!"

"That's because my best friend is your brother," Dylan joked, attempting to lighten the mood, but his words only seemed to intensify Brenda's anger.

"No, that's because I would never do that to you. I could never hurt you like that."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"You're hurting me now."

His words hung between them and Brenda turned away, walking over to the window, effectively putting as much space between them as possible in the small room. Her eyes searched a minute for Mrs. Pony, but it was too dark to see the ground, let alone to see a small stuffed animal that may have landed out of sight anyway.

"I'm not trying to hurt you," she sighed. "I'm just not letting you hurt me."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"That's what you said last May," Brenda let a hand slip up to her eye and wipe away a phantom tear. She wasn't actually crying, she just felt like she should be. "And yet, by August you were already cheating on me. Again."

"I wasn't," Dylan took a few steps toward her – Brenda could see from the reflection in the window – but she didn't turn around. "I swear that Brenda. I know I hurt you, but there weren't other women until…"

"Until when, Dylan? After I read the letter or after you mailed it, or maybe after you finished writing it? After you decided to write it?"

"Until Brandon told me that you weren't coming home," she felt a whisper beside her cheek, saw the reflection of his hand reaching to touch her and then falling to his side. "Until I knew I'd chased you away."

"That's not what happened."

She was growing sick of explaining that her decision to stay in London had nothing to do with Dylan McKay. She'd already read what was essentially a Dear Jane letter by then. She'd already known they were over. The RADA was probably the best theatre school in the world, and the summer program had rid her of all doubts that theatre was what she wanted to do with her life.

"I made a choice for me," she told Dylan. "For once in all the years we've known each other, I made a decision that had nothing to do with you or my parents or my brother or my friends. I wasn't running away from you, Dylan."

"It felt like it."

"Maybe it wouldn't have if you'd returned my calls. If you'd let me explain."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"I'm sorry."

He finally allowed himself to touch her, letting a hand rest on her shoulder.

"I know the words aren't enough, and I know that you have every reason to be angry, but I am so, so sorry."

She didn't shrug him away, but she didn't turn around or encourage him, either.

"I hate myself for hurting you," he continued softly. "If you'd read my letters, you'd understand that. And I want to do anything I can to make things better between us. You're still the first person I think to talk to whenever something goes wrong or right in my life. You were all I could talk about in rehab… all I could think about…"

"You say that now," Brenda stepped away, turning to face him, but it was a trade off, as Dylan's arm fell to his side once more. "But Dylan, I have no reason to trust that. I have no reason to trust you."

"The letters…"

"Are just words. Even if I'd read them."

"Brenda…"

"The truth is, until I came back, you were pining over Kelly and angry at Brandon for being with her, and if I leave again tomorrow, you'll go right back to that," Brenda shook her head.

"That's not true."

"I think it is," Brenda bit her lip. "And I wish I could say that I can't be your girlfriend again but I can be your friend. The truth is, I don't think I can be either."

"Brenda…"

"I'm sorry, Dylan. But I think you should go."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After Dylan left, Brenda sank into the window seat, feeling a few real tears fall from her eyes. She wiped them away quickly, mentally counting the seconds it would take for Brandon to open the bathroom door and check on her.

Fifteen and a half, if she'd been counting her Mississippis correctly.

"I couldn't help overhearing some of that," Brandon said quietly, leaning against the doorjamb. "Are you okay?"

"I will be," Brenda nodded. "I'll be fine."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~