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

Chapter Twenty-Two:

I was walking into school feeling better than I had in day's.

Our room still had her presence there this morning. Getting dressed in our small dressing room I could turn and see a few of her clothes there, it made me able to picture the room dominated by her clothes in a couple of months. It would be us getting dressed together each morning, chatting about our day's ahead. It had me almost happy enough to whistle.

"Jones you're in a good mood this morning, I'm glad one of us is." And just like that the good evaporated.

"You or Bren?" It was a pointless question, if it was about him then my wife would be worried, if it was about her then he'd be worried. Either way I knew when I married her that our brother would play an important part in our lives together. I also appreciated that they felt the same way about me, if it was me in a mood both would feel it too.

"Both. Your Dad was… well he was too nice and accommodating of the new comers into the upper elite's of Beverly Hills society." I respected Brandon's sarcastic outrage it made me roll my eyes- Jim would never be satisfied. My Dad and I over our now daily morning coffee had discussed the night before, he had seemed confident that he hadn't offended anyone and that he hadn't been too domineering. I knew he had been worried himself about fitting back in, and hearing Jim's second hand complaints from Brandon he had obviously tried to make it comfortable for all, he had tried to help Bren and I. "D Jack was being awesome you know my dad he's… well he hasn't been the same since the Mexican border. It's like he left all goodwill for you in that custom's office."

"Bren okay?" To him we weren't together but he knew it was just to calm the situation, he knew I loved her more than anything- though I know he doesn't know how much. Twin flame's, well if his twin has one I hope he has one too, I hope he gets to understand how his sister is everything to me.

"She's… she is like a different person there. She just lets it all go past her, though I can feel it bothers her."

"Twin feel?" I knew the story of the surgery, I knew they had the connection though it worried me if he could feel her it means she wasn't coping as well as I thought she was. There was a point I'd call at end to this charade, I'd stop indulging Jim's power play and declare that his dictator routine was over. My wife hurting like she was being cut into was well and truly past that point.

Brandon must tell how worried I am but I doubt he can read me well enough to see that I'm already thinking about going to my lawyer's office. I'd tie us up in so much legal issues that he'd be there for the next six months, I'd plead to the parole board myself for my Dad to stay. "No no twin feels, just you know… she fidgets now. She used to hold his eyes when he got like that daring him, challenging him. She has done it since we were kids-"

"We wouldn't call her stubborn though."

"No not to her face at least." We share a smile at the momentary reprieve from the heavy, "she fidgets a lot now. Holds her chain near her neck. Tap's her coffee cup, rarely makes eye contact. It's like he's stifling her light."

"Yeah that's exactly what he's doing." I give him a look, "we are doing what he wants but B honestly I don't want her like this I don't want her hurting, if it's too much…"

He understands that I'd intervene, what I'd do well I'm sure he thinks it would be another beginning of summer scene- it would be bigger. "No D she's… well I won't say okay but last night being away from them and being home alone getting to be well…" he laughs, "getting to play the actress by herself… well it helped. She was happy a little embarrassed but at least happy last night." What the hell does he think she was doing at home by herself? Whatever he believes has him amused, I'd have to ask my wife. "Look I know you guy's are trying to be respectful of my parents and keep your distance follow the rules, and believe me I appreciate it. I do not want to miss out on my last year of West Bev because my Dad's sending my better half and me by voluntary extension to the State of New York, it's just… well this morning beside's going on about your Dad. Did you know Iris asked to spend time with Bren last night?" He doesn't wait for me to answer and continues on. "Dad's well he's curious about your Mum's and your family tree. He questioned her this morning and… well she didn't want to but she told him only what he'd have found out from his office-"

I interrupt his defence of my wife, "B your sister, you don't need to worry that I'll think she has crossed a line and given too much family information away. She, she is trusted to set the line, she would have said what she thinks was best."

He raises his eyebrow at that and smiles, "McKay what happened to the loner who had so many rumours around him when we first arrived that my sister thought you had impregnated a girl in France?" I bark out a laugh at that. That did not make her letter to me, I'm going to be asking my transparent wife about that one as well. "The guy who pretended to break into the BelAge to make sure no one knew what was real and what was fake about him?"

I smile and clap him on the back, "he's still there man but your sister well she knows everything. She is a McKay she knows Mum's, mine, hell even Jack holds nothing back with his daughter."

"Yeah well that may be the problem. Dad asked more about Iris and Bren told him that if he wanted to know anything else he'd have to ask your mum, she said the rest was McKay Family information. Dad told her she was a Walsh, and well she told him about the relationship she and Iris have developed over the last year and how your Mum says she's an honorary daughter. Dad lost it then and well now Iris is not going to get her request. He thinks she's encouraging your too fast too much relationship."

"Shit. Bren-"

"Said nothing, just pretended that she didn't hear him shut another person she loves out of her life. It was… it was weird. I'm worried."

"Don't be I'll talk to her in chem actually we have history together this morning. I'll ask her then make sure she's okay. B you know your sister isn't going to lie to them she's not going to say that what we have, her place in our family is less than it is. She's just not going to fight them to see reason, your Dad and even your Mum have decided what they think is best that we are too serious and I'll hold her back. Your sister and I we just don't want to waste our breath going horse pleading a case that is a losing battle. We'll just wait."

"I'm assuming you are just putting off the fireworks till our birthday when he can't send her to Buffalo-"

"B man you know you are my brother forever but you don't want to be pulled into this. Look I know your sister has told you it's a couple of month's of uncomfortableness for us but you don't want to know what happens then. Look you know I appreciate what your parents have done for me, well maybe not since your Dad arrived at the border but if we can sort this out before Bren and I then…" I stop it's never going to be sorted. "Who am I kidding Jimbo is not changing his mind, he's hated me since he saw the car, the earring, since he heard the last name. He didn't want me for Bren from the start. I mean Baja was just the excuse he was looking for, look how far he went this summer and that was before my Dad was out. You don't go to that extreme that fast, you don't change your mind that quickly unless he was looking for a justification from the start, biding his time for me to fuck up."

Brandon stops walking beside me which makes me halt both my steps and my rant, "okay I feel like I've destroyed your good mood. What had you so happy this morning anyway? Excited for your first printed pages in The Blaze this morning?"

"The Blaze yeah that's cool man but no it was just waking up in the house. The bungalow well it was great but this place it's home and well Mrs McKay has made it very homey for me." I knew I was pushing it this morning I was pushing Bren's place so much but how else could I say that this house, the one we choose in Paris looking at a tape together while eating a baguette. Starved from our obsession and possession of the other, the baguette she had bought that morning before the idiot who couldn't read a map came up to her. How could I say that when she saw it she began tapping me while leaning forward wanting the remote but not using word's? How do I say she paused on every room asking if I thought it should be a round or rectangle table, two arm chairs or another couch, should our room have a four poster bed or something simpler? Her eyes had sparkled all the time and she had listened to each one of my answers though never took her eyes of the screen, and since had brought those decisions to life. Mrs D McKay had made me my proper first home and she had made it for us, I refuse to devalue her place in my life even if I'm trying to mislead on who I am talking about.

"Jones you know I'm happy for you. Iris, spending time with her this summer, she's… well she's still a hippie but you can see how much she wants to be your mum how much she wanted to be there for you both. Like she had just been waiting to be invited to be there."

"She had been. She didn't think she had a right or was wanted, and well it hadn't worked out when she forced her way in last year but Bren and I calling her wanting help it's opened…" I stop I love my brother but this is McKay business it's so deeply personal and it's not even for his my brother's ears. "Anyway Mum and I are good. Though she and Dad were working on their meditation and yoga garden area as I left. We may not be good if I can hear any of the wind chimes she's planning on putting up from inside my house."

He knew my hatred for the tape, he had heard me complain about it more than once over the summer. "Dylan why don't you just ask her not to hang them or listen to that tape if they annoy you so much?"

"Yeah my mother doesn't really hear no. I blame my father he doesn't ever say no to her." And it was true, he looked at her like she was magic. I knew that look I wear it enough around my own Mrs McKay, though I at least can say no, well I had enough strength against her power to ask her to reconsider.

"It's going well between them? Do you think that they'll…?"

"My Dad, she just has to say the word, he's… he will take whatever she'll give him and he will be happy for it as all he wants is to be close to her. Mum mum's been hurt by him, she loves him that's not even an uncertainty he's the one for her but to come back from some of the stuff he's done even if you understand it and can rationalise his thinking process. She… it's…" I hold my folder tighter to stop the natural impulse to run my fingers through my hair. "I'm just glad your sister and I will never experience that. Our stupidity last year her with cardio guy and me with Betty, well that felt like shit it won't happen again. Ever."

"That's good to know but you are technically a single guy who currently has about twenty girls flipping hair and staring at him in this quad alone."

"Yeah are there, I'm not interested. And stop with this single shit. I may not be Bren's boyfriend anymore but neither of us are single… we are just-"

"Waiting a couple of months, and in the meantime I'm going to spend those months worried about my sister."

"B you're a good brother. I'm glad you guy's put whatever was getting in your twin way at the start of summer behind you. She, we need you."

"Oh Jones I feel the love." I roll my eyes and then raise my eyebrow in challenge at his sarcasm, he could not cope with sentimentality his twin obviously got the lions share of the ability. He scratches his ear knowing I want a serious response, "look Jimbo is… I'm nothing like him but I had begun to miss her. You took care of her after the holdup even with you guy's together during her health scare and when we were looking to be moving back to Minnesota, she still needed me I had a place. The holdup well she didn't need me at all, she needed only you. I was feeling like shit for leaving that door unlocked, it was my fault and then I couldn't even help her get through the trauma I caused."

"You didn't cause shit, a seventeen whacked out guy with a gun looking for money for his next score caused that- no one else. And as for the other, B I love your sister she is it for me for life. One day she'll be by my side permanently and I'm not going to let her go, I'm not letting anyone even your Dad come between us, but even then she's going to need you. I'm going to need you. I mean who else will understand how stubborn, frustrating and perfect she is, and who can she vent to when I'm getting too much in my head?"

"Oh so it's about what I can do for the both of you is it?"

"Nah man, we know our role with you. I'm there to save your ass from cliffs literal and figurative, and she's there to cheer you on, and to tell you to pull your head in when needed."

"I'm not that bad."

"Two words. Emily Valentine."

"Okay okay so I make some mistakes. I didn't know she was struggling."

"Bren did and you ignored her. Though speaking of your love life anything new on the horizon after you and Brooke departed company?"

"Nope. Nothing. I'm single."

"Kel-"

"D don't even say it. Steve and then the… we have nothing in common I mean look at Jake. He surfed and had a bike, she wants a guy, well she wants a guy like you."

I shake my head, "Yeah I think Jake showed her guy's like me aren't worth it-"

"I think my sister would beg to differ."

"Your sister is the exception, ask the girls I… well dated isn't the word but ask those girls and they'll say I'm as bad as Jake. Kelly would be an idiot to go after another guy like that, she's tried the surfer, biker-"

"Mysterious rebel." I roll my eye's at his additional adjectives.

"And he led her on and then went back to his normal life. I mean she's not going to want another of those guys looking for a few weeks of escapism, who has no interest in anything but a few moments of fun. To go from Jake to something else like that, I mean she's not that self destructive."

"Yeah regardless of her type, she's Brenda's best friend, Steve's ex girlfriend, David's sister, so it's not going to happen."

"So many reasons for no, it seems you have thought about this a fair bit Jones."

His response was cut off by the bell once it stopped he looked at me, "come on we have AP English you can stop annoying me out here and move on to annoying me in there with your bibliophile way's."

I laugh and follow my brother to class. I'm so telling my wife that my hunch was right, he likes her he's just not ready yet.