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

Chapter Seven

I didn't realise the baby monitor had been on when Kelly went down stairs to get Erin her bottle. I didn't think that as I was speaking to Erin in my confusion about how to settle her that she'd actually quieten down and listen. She had looked so little looking up at me and she was so tiny. What I said was for her ears only, and Bren's now for if Kelly knew Bren absolutely had to. I'm sure though my girl would assume that it was said in reaction to hearing the full story of my early years from my mother even if it wasn't.

When Kelly walked back in the room she quickly took her sister and brought her to the rocking chair and began feeding her, as I stood in the doorway looking around at the baby stuff she spoke but didn't raise her eyes from her sister. "Were you serious?"

"Serious about what?"

"The monitor is on I could hear you in the kitchen. Were you serious?"

Crap I guess it's not just between me and the newborn then. "Yes. Bren and I, well I want to travel with her for a bit and enjoy having her all to myself, but yeah what I told Erin is true."

"You want twins?"

"Well now I know I can carry one baby in one arm then yeah if we can. Twins run in her family so hopefully we'll get a set in the mix."

She looks up at me then, "you guy's speak about the future that long term? You don't think that you'll grow apart, meet other people?"

"No Bren and I… well my mother would say we are made of the same substance. I'm not sure of the hippie stuff but I do know when I met her I just knew she was mine." I scratch the back of my head, "okay so maybe I do believe some of the hippie things."

"So she's like your soulmate?"

"Yeah no there is nothing matey about her and I. My Mum would say twin flames." She gives me a confused look, "same soul just split in two, it's from greek mythology." I'm still focusing on the baby stuff rather than making eye contact, this conversation well I never thought I'd be having it with Kelly. As soon as I notice a little heart picture frame I chuckle as I just realise something.

"What's so funny?"

"That my know it all Mother is right." I pull out my chain with the half a heart, "I got this for us last Christmas she has the other. At the time I thought it was perfect for us. Some see it as gifting someone a piece of your heart, to me it was how us being together made me feel whole, and I know she feels the same." I look at my half and then drop it under my T-shirt, "she wears the other around her neck."

As she begins to burp Erin and she looks at me. "Dylan you guy's are young, aren't you worried that you'll end up like both our parents?"

"I can't speak for yours but mine were madly in love. Circumstances outside of their understanding messed them up but I know they were in love. Bren and I are the same. My parents haven't moved on from each other because they aren't supposed to. Bren and I would be the same. I have no desire to risk what Bren and I have for something that could never last. Never be anything more than a game of pretend. I get Bren and I won't always have it easy. These past few months have tested us pushed us, and Bren knows that at times I thought it was getting too hard, but we figured it out. It forced us to decide what's important. At the end of the day it's us."

"She's a lucky girl to have you-"

"Kel you remember what I was like before I met her, I flirted with every girl who crossed my path. I… well I didn't often stay longer than a few hours and I definitely wasn't the guy to call the next day or ever. I'm the lucky one. She brought out a guy in me that I didn't know existed, he's completely me just one that deserves her. I like myself with her I like the man I am with her."

"I don't think I have ever said that that I like myself, that I'm completely me with a guy." She walks over to the cot and puts a sleeping Erin in.

"You will you just got to find the right guy or the right guy just has to grow up a little first."

As we walk out of the room and back downstairs she looks at me and crinkles her nose, "Steve?"

I laugh and bump her shoulder, "I was thinking my brother-"

"He thinks of me as a sister."

"Yeah I've spent over eighteen months watching him with his sister, thank god he doesn't look at her the same way as he does you."

It's clear she likes the idea when she perks up, "you think that he and I…"

"I think it's weird that the Minnesota player has never once tried to. Steve doesn't help but Brandon knows you guys are over, and well Steve would want you happy. You might need to wait for Brandon to… well figure he's ready for serious. Sorry Bren and I may have scared him a little away from that commitment."

"Do you think Brenda would mind?"

"Only if either of you break the other's hearts. She may get you to promise that before you guy's start dating but she'll get the same promise out of Brandon. I imagine once she has that commitment from both of you she'll secretly begin planning your wedding. She likes to imagine long term-"

"She's not the only one, how many kids were you telling Erin that you were planning on having with Bren? And how many years away did you want to start?"

"It's not imagining long term with us, Bren and I know our future is together."

"Don't let Jim hear you as I'm sure he'd move her away permanently if he knew how soon you want to make him a grandfather."

"Yeah he can try but she wouldn't be gone for long." As she sits on her couch and me on the other she looks at me in curiosity.

"I thought like the rest of us you wanted Jim, wanted to be apart of the perfect family?"

"They are not perfect and Jim's made it clear that he doesn't want me in his family, that may change but it's given me space to think. My parents, I'm understanding them more and well I'm not sure I'm ready to push them aside to strive to be Jim's unwanted and only on his terms son. Bren and I will create our perfect family one day but in the meantime I'm doing something I never thought I would. I'm accepting my parents flaw's and I'm seeing if in that forgiveness if I can find the family I've always wanted."

I look around her house, I hadn't ever spent much time here but I had picked Bren up occasionally it had changed a little. "Isn't that why you didn't go to Paris you are doing the same here?"

"Yeah. It's scary though I'm constantly waiting on the other shoe to drop like I know it's fragile and may not last."

"I know the feeling. I drank last year because of that feeling."

"But you are willing to risk it again?"

"Bren is my family that is not changing, we are in a different place than last time I tried. This time if my parents can't move on from their own hurts and find the connection we were denied that's on them. It's their fear not mine. They'll lose out they'll lose out on their son and their daughter in law-"

"And grandchildren, four to six of them and soon." I feel myself blush a little, it was meant for Erin's baby ears only. "I get you have Bren to rely on, that it gives you security but I don't have that."

"You have a baby sister upstairs and Silver seems keen to be your brother, maybe you let Mel and Jackie be the maybes like my parents, and instead you hold on to what's never going to change your siblings. Look how Bren and Brandon are they love their parents but their Walsh foundation is each other."

She's quiet for a few moments and then looks up at me like she has a bad taste in her mouth, "I get how to be Erin's sister but how do you be the sister to a teenage boy."

I laugh, "Bren will tell you that you make sure they don't do anything too stupid and help them see beyond their own ego. They in return will have your back-"

"Is that what Brandon does for her as he seemed a little more snippy at her before she left?"

"He is nearly as bad as Jim in his fear that I'll take her away from him. He started to let it cloud his judgment before the summer. Do you know he was mad when his parents gave us permission to go to Mexico? B though… he and I we've worked it out, and Bren and him have as well. He knows he isn't losing his sister that I'm not separating the twins I am not going to pull them a part; his bond with her is thankfully nothing like mine with her and he knows she can have both. He's understanding we are it, and what that means for him is not losing his twin but rather allowing him to gain a permanent brother."

She's quiet taking it all in. I know Bren won't mind me sharing glimpses of our private stuff with her as I know she would have done the same, B well he'll be cool as long as he knows it's helping her. Eventually she speaks, "David's flirting with a girl down at the club." Okay so she's taking my sibling idea seriously, I'm glad she's looked lonely lately.

"That sounds like he's being a stupid brother especially risking hurting Donna. Are you going to jump in a give him the hard word?"

She smiles, "yeah I guess I should get onto that when he gets home." I nod at her, "so what movie did you bring?"

"Well I was thinking classic but then when I got to the store I saw that Point Break has been released on video. Have you seen it?" She shakes her head, "well Bren and I saw it at the cinema last year. I like it for the surfing, Bren well she liked it because of her Patrick Swayze obsession, oh and she liked the skydiving parts because it reminds her of you guy's jumping out of a plane. So should we order a pizza and watch?"

It was my turn to ring and Dylan spent the first part of the phone call telling me all about his night helping Kelly babysit. He told me how he got sprung being what I referred to as clucky. Before I could say it was in response to his parents he jumped in and said it wasn't. It was in response to looking down at Erin and imagining my eyes and hopefully not with his forehead staring back up at him.

The thing about Dylan when he's in he is all in.

He was like that since the moment we started dating, both times, and while we didn't break up I knew since he came home from my Dad's office and told me of his threat that this was the beginning of a new time in our relationship. We were learning to commit to each other in a different way. I had worried that it may be too much that he may hide away from this intimacy, it's why I had started writing to him afraid if I didn't keep it going he might regret it and run. He had gone the complete opposite way. He was in. All in.

"Okay Mr Clucky let's graduate school and start College first before we begin planning on the little mini McKay's."

"Fine. You know I wasn't thinking immediately I'm too selfish for that. I want you all to myself for a while first, but maybe at twenty-three?"

"Oh we are going full planning mode, what happened to let's take it one step at a time?" He can hear the teasing especially as I had tried to mimic his cowboy tone he once used saying that line.

"Well we are taking it one step at a time, I'm just planning for some future steps we are going to take. So twenty-three? It gives me another five years to have you all to myself and to show you the world."

"Twenty-three is a good rough guide-"

"Rough guide?" It was more curiosity in his tone than concern, though there was a hint of that in the undertone, I guess he was worried that I was dismissing his idea.

"Well we've already had one close call." He got my teasing but also that there was genuine honesty that there was always a chance that nothing was ever fool proof. And well with us fate and the odds might step in. Dylan and I enjoyed each other, twenty-three might end up being taken out of our hands.

I like that his voice is reassuring of my concern. "Yeah we were in a different place then. I was in such a different place. Jack knew they were closing in on him, the assets had begun to be frozen and well he had warned me that even what was left would be running out. Us being pregnant I knew I had nothing to offer. It wasn't like that girl Brandon had dated a few months earlier where it was just her being young, I was freaking out because it was being young and broke." As he spoke there was a clear need in his tone for me to understand why he hadn't been there as he should. Why I wasn't at his condo doing a test with him, and instead had been at my house with Kelly and Donna. We were doing what I imagine our next letter would be about, we were sharing the parts we had kept hidden.

"I didn't know that, you never said that you knew it was coming."

"You were leaving for Minnesota I didn't want you to worry on top of that. I didn't want you wondering what would come of me if you left, and in fairness Baby I didn't care about the money. You leaving was throwing me into a spin." He takes a breath and asks a question I wonder how long has been on his mind for, "would you have run away?"

"When I realised I was late it was my first thought. Run with you like we had discussed on the beach. I guess I should of clued in then that I was beginning my running stage-"

"Running with me I don't mind, running away from me I have a problem with. I have nightmares about."

"My running solo stage is over. Anyway, I learnt that summer that I can't run away from you for long. Did I ever tell you I kept imagining you randomly there that whole summer? I kept seeing you appear when you were in Hawaii."

He chuckles, "good I'm glad it's not one sided being away from each other. I keep a running list of all the little things I need to tell you. Anytime something happens I want you to know immediately or I want your take on it. I think six weeks is the longest we should ever be apart."

"Well Mr McKay if I become an actress I might have to move around a bit, I might be away for work for periods of time."

"Yeah, I've been thinking on that. Ben, well you know I've been speaking with him a lot over the last three weeks. Change is hard for addicts and well he thinks we are handling these changes really well but he did raise what's next, becoming an adult, college, he knows that application forms will need to be started soon. Change tends to kick in an addicts stress response we tend to fight, freeze or flight. It might surprise you but I tend to either fight or flight." I giggle yep that's Dylan. "So in our conversation yesterday he asked me to consider what I don't want from my future. Bren I can't see me as a nine to five office worker, and while Iris' friend is already chatting to me about how to invest I don't see myself as a business man capitalising on my trust to grow it more. I don't want to turn into my Dad."

"Yeah I can't see you coming home in a suit and tie every night after sitting behind a desk all day doing the same thing over and over. I also can't see me being a stay at home mum cleaning, gardening, and lunching all day." He laughs.

"Yeah you'd be crazy bored in a matter of weeks and our house would be like a white room- completely sterilised. What do you think of me going into publishing, like an editor?"

"You reading all day that sounds perfect for you. I could see you doing that, helping writer's tell their story, but you wouldn't want to write your own?"

"Yeah maybe one day, but I like the idea of helping new young writers who may not have access to the advantages that I have had get heard. Get their idea's out there."

"Baby that sounds… specific, that sounds more than editing a manuscript. If you want to be choosing authors and with a specific style it sounds more like you want to start your own publishing house not just editing for an existing house."

"McKay House. It has a nice ring to it. We could focus printing on environmentally friendly paper, we could tap into new voices give them a platform- everything from poets to politics. Find stories to turn into screenplays for the talented Brenda McKay the actress."

I laugh, "you sound excited. If this is something you want to do then I'm behind you but maybe you should think about chatting with Mrs T move into AP English. You could also talk to Andrea maybe it's time The Blaze has a creative writing or essay section. See if you could be the editor of those pages."

"You think she'll go for it?"

"I think there is no harm in asking, and cutting your teeth on learning how to get the best out of a writer in a safe space like West Bev is probably a good start."

"Yeah. I'll go see her this afternoon see if she likes the idea."

I hear the last coin drop I have only a couple of seconds left on the pay phone. "Baby it's going to cut out soon. I love you."

"I love yo-" the phone cuts him off. As I put the receiver down I consider our conversation. Our letters and phone calls were making me feel closer to him more than I ever had. He obviously felt the same. Whether he was serious with this timeline I wasn't sure, it may be just in response to the distance and the stress but regardless I knew he was serious about me.