A/N: This is a very long chapter, and a very Walsh chapter. The family is kind of just now dealing with Brenda's diagnosis and their reactions to it, etc. There is some Dylan in the chapter, and he will definitely be back by the next chapter, so he and Brenda can start to work on their issues :D. Anyway, I hope this is a good chapter; I know it's been awhile, but I've been back at school and I'm trapped in classes and homework and finding a job.

Part Twelve

The sun was already creeping over the horizon by the time Brandon killed the ignition and leaned back in his seat. The lights in the garage and in the kitchen were both on, completely destroying the whole purpose behind his decision to crawl out of Kelly's bed at four thirty in the morning and drag himself home instead of sleeping in and waking up in his girlfriend's arms. If both Brenda and his parents were well aware that he'd spent most of the night at the beach apartment, there was no reason not to spend the whole night there.

Still, the college dating rules had never been fully defined, and Brandon wasn't sure how he was supposed to behave. His parents had stopped enforcing curfews, but he still got the feeling that spending the night out would be frowned upon. He also knew that if Brenda or Val spent the night out there would be Hell to pay. He didn't particularly want to make that inevitable fight any worse by getting away with staying out all night himself.

With a sigh, Brandon slid out of the car and made his way to the kitchen door.

"Mom?"

The kitchen was absolutely covered in baked goods; muffins, croissants, pastries, and more, were all over the counters and the kitchen table. His mother was the only Walsh who could possibly be responsible, although it would have to mean she'd been up all night.

"Brandon,' she exclaimed, walking in from the dining room. Through the archway he could see that the dining room table was also covered. "You're home late."

"I kind of lost track of time," he shrugged sheepishly. "What is all this?"

"I volunteered to make breakfast for the shelter," Cindy picked up a mixing bowl filled with batter and began to stir. "You know they can't afford to serve food unless a volunteer provides it for them? I think that says something about America's priorities, don't you?"

"Uh… yeah," Brandon sat down at the counter. The shelter where the Walshes normally volunteered only housed 12 people at a given time. His mother had already made enough to serve 50 people and she didn't show any signs of stopping. "Don't you think you've made enough, Mom?"

"It never hurts to be over-prepared."

There was no way this was about the shelter, Brandon knew. Each of the Walshes handled bad news in their own ways, but Brenda and Cindy's ways were markedly similar; his sister cleaned and organized, while his mother cooked (and cooked and cooked and cooked and…). Cindy poured the batter into the muffin tins and slid the latest batch into the oven. She immediately began combining ingredients for a new batch.

"Did something happen last night?" Brandon asked, nervous about whatever it was that had sent his mother into this tailspin. She didn't respond. "Mom?"

"I told you," she began stirring vigorously. "This is for the shelter."

"You've been up all night," Brandon shook his head. "There's no way the shelter expects you to put this much effort in. No one else would."

"Brandon, let it go."

"She's going to be okay."

"We don't know that," Cindy dropped the spoon and although her back was to him, Brandon could hear her voice shaking. "The fact is the odds are against her."

"But she's Brenda," Brandon got off his stool and went over to his mother. "She's too strong to let the cancer beat her. Not now. Not when she's got her career and her family…"

"Sheila was strong," Cindy turned to face him, and Brandon could see tear tracks on her face. "Sheila had all those things. Cancer has nothing to do with any of that, Brandon. Sheila didn't die because she wasn't strong enough or brave enough or good enough. She died because she wasn't lucky enough."

"I didn't mean that it was Aunt Shiela's fault," Brandon said, stunned that his mother could even think that he would say that. He'd never thought about it that way at all, to be honest. God, what his mother must be going through, if she heard every well-meaning platitude as a condemnation of her sister. "All I meant was… Brenda's young. She's got the best doctors on the west coast. Both tumors were removed. I know she's still sick, but Mom… she's got a chance. I have to believe she has a chance."

"A chance is all she's got."

"Mom…"

"Would you take these to her?" Cindy wiped her eyes and grabbed a basket of muffins and pastries from the counter. "I think she's been up all night and she should probably eat."

Still wondering what had happened the night before, Brandon gave up on finding anything out from his mother and decided try his hand at getting Brenda to open up to him.

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

'Dear Brenda,

I'm finally out of rehab. For the first time in what feels like forever, I'm alone. My Mom went back to Hawaii. She swears I don't need her around anymore. Your Mom and Val came by, too. They were really sweet, but it felt… off.

The truth is, you're the only person I want to see. When I was drunk and high, I could almost pretend Val was enough, but now… now I'm done. I'm not going to see anyone else until I stop seeing your face every time I close my eyes. Or until I have you back.

God, Bren, if I ever get you back, I swear to you, I will never, ever stop trying to make everything up to you.

Your Mom made it clear that she wants me to go back to school, but I don't know. There's the money issue, for one thing. But more than that, I don't think I'm ready to be back in that world again. I need to focus on me for awhile, not on deadlines and papers and other people's ideas of what I should be doing or studying. Going back right now would feel like going backwards. Trying to fit myself into something that I'm supposed to be. I guess I'd rather just spend some time figuring out who I want to be.

Does that make sense?

I wish you were going to actually read this letter. I wish we were on speaking terms, so that I could get your thoughts on all this. I miss you more than I ever thought I would. More than I ever have before, which is saying quite a bit.

Because I know you'll never read this, I can be selfish. I can beg you to come home now. I love that you're strong and independent and happy over there (or so I hear from Donna and your family), because God knows, you weren't happy here. And I would be even more of a jerk than I am to begrudge you that happiness when I caused so much of your unhappiness.

I don't begrudge your happiness, Brenda, but I do envy it.

And the selfish part of me (which is, admittedly, most of me), just hates that your happiness took you so far away from me. And I hate that I screwed everything up so badly that the distance between us isn't just literal.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm trying. I'm trying to figure this all out. I'm trying to be better, and I miss you, every day.

Oh, and I got a clipping of your latest review… your scenes from Hamlet, for one of your classes I guess. It sounds like you were amazing. Of course you were amazing. I wish I'd seen it.

Love,
Dylan.'

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

Setting the letter down with a sigh, Brenda wiped away a few tears that dared to fall from her eyes. Somehow, the things Dylan wrote were hitting her harder than anything he'd ever said to her. A piece of him came alive on the page, a piece that was always dormant when he spoke. He was much more aware of himself, much more eloquent in writing. Reading his letters felt like looking into his eyes, or lying in his arms or slow dancing. At those times, she knew him and she knew herself and she knew that they would be okay.

But did Val have that same feeling, that she knew him? Did Kelly? Val and Kelly had each had monumentally messed up childhoods. They had each had emotional traumas and they'd each dealt with addictions in various loved ones. Maybe they understood him more deeply than Brenda did. Maybe it wasn't about what books he liked but whose parents were just as awful as his were.

That's not what the letters say, Brenda reminded herself. The man loves you, you know that.

What she didn't know was why her exes all seemed to end up with Valerie in the end. Or why it was bothering her so much that Val was with Stuart. Brenda didn't even like Stuart. They were beyond wrong for each other, and Brenda had never really missed him. He'd been charming and sophisticated and he'd swept her off her feet, but she hadn't ever fallen for him. If Val had, there wasn't really anything wrong with it, except that it established a pattern with Val.

A pattern which led back to Dylan and to Val and Dylan.

And to heartbreak.

But hey, on the plus side, Brenda wasn't thinking about how she was probably dying. Or she hadn't been until now.

A soft knock at the door shook her thoughts, fortunately. She'd been expecting her brother to check in ever since she'd heard his car. They hadn't been as close as they once were, but she knew he'd seen her light and want to make sure she was okay. He wouldn't be Brandon if he didn't.

"Come in."

"Hey," her brother stepped into the room, holding up a basket of what appeared to be baked goods. "From Mom."

"Why does everyone keep giving me food?" Brenda shook her head. Iris sent some new herbal remedy over every time Dylan came by, and in the days since he'd left for Mexico, Iris herself had come over a few times. Donna brought ice cream. Andrea made brownies. Steve's Mom had sent over a beautiful fruit basket that actually touched Brenda very deeply. "Does no one realize how hard it's going to be to be a fat actress?"

"You're hardly fat," Brandon shook his head as he moved across the room to sit next to her on the bed. Brenda quickly shuffled the letters out of sight.

"It was a joke," she explained. She realized, of course, that she'd reached the 'scarily underweight' category, but she never seemed to have any kind of appetite anymore. "It's just a lot of food."

Brandon nodded and they fell silent.

Brenda knew that there were conversations they both desperately wanted to have, but neither twin quite knew where to begin.

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

"Cindy?"

Cindy Walsh wiped at her tears before turning to face her husband. She'd spent most of the last few weeks in tears and she knew Jim must be sick of it. She was sick of it.

"Have you been up all night?" Jim looked around the kitchen in awe. Following his gaze, Cindy suddenly realized how ridiculous her army of baked goods truly was.

"Anything to keep busy," she shrugged. "The coffee should be ready in a few minutes."

"We're doing everything we can do for her," Jim spoke quietly, putting his arms around his wife. His words reminded her of Brandon's earlier attempts at consolation, and Cindy felt guilty for a moment about the way she'd snapped at him. This time wasn't like it had been with Shiela; then, she had been much, much closer to her sister and therefore to the loss than the rest of her family. Now, she knew, her husband and son were just as frightened as she was.

"It only gets worse from here," Cindy said, lost in memories of her sister's struggle with the same disease. "The chemo, the radiation, all of it… it only gets worse. I don't want it to get worse."

Jim didn't say anything; he simply held her and rocked her gently. She leaned into his shoulder and let a few more tears fall. They stayed that way for several long moments, not speaking, just leaning on one another's shoulders. When Sheila had been sick, Jim's work schedule hadn't really allowed him to be there to support Cindy. In fact, he'd been away on business when Sheila died. Now, with Brenda, he was obviously making up for that. He was really the person holding the family together right now, and Cindy didn't know what she would do without him.

"Brenda needs her mother," Jim finally whispered. "Whatever comes next, she needs her mother. And you need to be there for her, Cindy. You'll always regret it if you aren't."

"I know."

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

"Did something happen last night, Brenda?" Brandon was starting to feel like he had déjà vu or something, but his mother and sister were both behaving very strangely this (very early) morning, and he knew there was no way to gradually build up to the conversation he and Brenda needed to have. He needed to know what was going on with Brenda.

"Something like what?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Mom's been baking all night. It looks like you've been up all night. Something must have happened."

"I'm not really sure," Brenda sighed, pulling a pillow onto her lap and toying with it. "The whole night was just weird."

"Want to talk about it?" Brandon asked when she didn't immediately explain.

"It really wasn't a big deal," she shrugged again. "We all had dinner together, and Mom barely talked, as usual. Then Stuart Carson showed up…"

"What?!"

"Yeah," Brenda's expression was dark, and Brandon suspected that Stuart's visit had not gone well. "Apparently he's dating Val, now."

"What?!" Brandon couldn't even think of a time when Val could have been introduced to Stuart. There hadn't been any clues, as far as he could tell. He really didn't want to believe that Val, who'd practically been a sister to him, and to Brenda, could be this cruel to Brenda, now. To go after Stuart so soon after going after Dylan, especially now, given everything… it seemed to imply that Val had something serious against Brenda, and Brandon couldn't work out why.

A feud with one of her oldest friends was the last thing Brenda needed right now.

"Yeah. So anyway, I wasn't in the best mood and my head started to hurt," Brenda seemed to be glossing over the whole evening, but Brandon could tell that she was hurting, both physically and emotionally. "The night kind of went down hill from there."

"Are you… okay now?" Brandon hedged. He didn't want to bother her if she was really still in pain, but he did think it was high time they had a heart to heart. They hadn't really sat down one on one since the night she'd announced she was sick.

"My headache's gone, if that's what you're asking," Brenda answered, laying back on the bed as she did so. "I did get a few hours of sleep, and I took some pain killers, so my head's okay."

"Brenda are you okay?" he asked again. His sister forced a small smile and nodded, but it was clear that she wasn't sincere. "Because it's okay, if you're not. There's a lot going on with you right now, I know."

"I'm really okay, Brandon."

Brandon reached out and wrapped his sister in his arms, pulling her to him. If she wasn't ready to talk, she needed to know he'd be around when she was ready, and he couldn't really think of any way to tell her that, other than to just… be there. Slowly, he felt tears start to wet his shirt, and he knew he was doing the right thing.

"Oh Brenda," he whispered, rocking her softly. "It'll be okay. It will."

It has to.

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