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

Chapter Two

Don't run, don't shake, don't collapse- they don't get to see you break.

Val, hear Val. When the girls bullied you in elementary for being a goody goody, studying too much and raising your hand too often, she told you in the bathroom to wash your face. She told you that if you break, you cry, they win.

Neither of them deserve to see that.

I make it to the edge of the park before I feel the water spill out of my eye, it's one tear first. It's a second by the time I have reached the third driveway. Why the fuck was it necessary to walk two blocks to a park? Why was it necessary to put me in the middle of nowhere? We never came here, not since Brandon was discovered here. Why did they need a place with no witnesses to tell me of their crimes?

By the time I reach the end of the block I'm unable to stop the waterfall, the shaking has started. I wrap my arms tighter around me.

Why didn't I see my Dylan disappearing?

Val's voice screams you did. The moment I asked her about the summer and not him, the moment I felt him being off I allowed him space to disappear. I'd been to enough AA meetings with him, addicts have a different relationship with the truth it's why the program requires absolute honesty. Dylan can't be given space, a place to hide from his truth. He used that slither of an out I gave him on the blanket, he used it to hide, but he told me eventually. He told me there was a girl that summer. If I had stayed then, if I hadn't turned to Rick if I had worked through it like everything else would he have come back then? Would he have found his way to close up all the spaces that he had been using to hide his lies?

The car I don't see it, I don't even hear my name until it's said for the second time. I look over then to the speaker behind the wheel, it's then I realise I must be a mess. His face goes from his usual big smile to concern. He's out of the car in seconds and placing two hand on my upper arms, holding me. "Brenda are you okay? What happened? Are you hurt?"

When I fall into his chest I break, I break and I can't stop it.

His arms wrap around me and he holds me. It's the first time since I asked about the party when the dread seeped in, it's the first time since then that I have felt safe, protected, that I wasn't alone. When he asks again I still can't speak, but I hear Val's voice, they can't see this.

Fuck his car, it's at mine as they drove over together, because they are together now, because they were secretly together in their affair they shared for months.

I pull back. His shirt is covered in mascara. I must look terrible, he doesn't mention it; he doesn't move his hands from holding me, his face is nothing but concern.

"Steve hhhh I need to hhh…" I stop to try and catch my breath through my tears. "They can't see me like this. They can't see that they broke me."

In an instant he understands, he understands imagine and pretending perfection, it's the bread and butter of Beverly Hills. "Okay I'll take you home." I tense, his hands must feel it, "my home."

I've never loved that Steve was a rule breaker as much as in those few minutes. He accelerated way too fast out of those suburban flat streets and had us climbing into the hills in a matter of moments. When we are behind the gates of his place, a place I have rarely been to, and the car is turned off he turns to look at me.

"I'm guessing McKay decided. For what it's worth, I thought it would be you. I remember our double date last year. I've never seen two people so together. I thought you guy's would get married."

My eyes fill even more, "I thought so too. I used to imagine it, the dress, his smile, everyone being happy for us." I bite my lip to hold in the sob. "It's not going to happen now… it's never going to be like that again. It's over-"

"Brenda, you don't know that. We are young, it's hard but people need to have fun before they settle down. Being serious too early on, look at Kelly and I, you don't know this, you didn't see it, but we were special together. It got too much for her and she ran, but I still think that when the times right-" I can't hear another man swoon over her, I can't listen to her being this amazing catch that no one besides Steve has showed much interest in since I arrived.

"Steve, I'm sorry but I can't listen to anything about her. Her and Dylan, I guess you could say had an affair if that's what you call it. They were together while I was in Paris, and when I got back she'd secretly go visit him at his house. Seven months of being lied to- I'm such an idiot! I trusted them both. I trusted them when I caught them on that date, that it was the first one. I trusted that she would never do this again to me-"

"Again? It's happened before, he cheated on you with her before."

"No. Not like that. When Dylan and I first got together, at the slumber party she told me that she had tried to get a date with him after he started seeing me. She justified it because they flirted together all through Freshman year-"

"That's when we were together." That sadness is his voice is like an echo of mine.

Fuck, I didn't want to talk about her, but I didn't want him to feel this as well. "Steve, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that I'm not thinking straight… you don't need to hear this. Look I'm sure it was harmless back then, I know she really cared about you-"

Was she serious? There is nothing but faded black streaks down her face, the tip of her nose is red for her tear's, she's almost shaking with emotion- I've never seen her look like this- destroyed, and yet she is here trying to protect me. Like she tried to protect me from that gold digger.

Fuck McKay, how can he do this to her? She deserves more than this.

He didn't do this alone.

Kelly and I, have practically lived at their house since they arrived; holidays, dinners, basketball games, barbecue's, she joked that her Mum though that her Dad should send the alimony cheque there because they fed her so much. The Walsh's, Brandon and Brenda have given us our first stable family, they've invited us into their's, and this is how she repays that.

Loyalty. Loyalty I understand, I always have.

I thought she was loyal in freshman year like I was.

I thought this gang was a team, I thought we'd have each other's backs always. I know enough about teams to know that to make them work you need to be in it together. Football, basketball, baseball, your loyalty is to the team. McKay… and Kelly, they both obviously don't understand that.

Bren's in the bathroom. I brought her inside once I had coaxed out the full story. She had voiced it all with an air of disbelief and confusion, like she still didn't quite understand what had just taken place. McKay was a piece of shit. Kelly… I didn't want to think about.

When we got inside I asked what she needed. "A shower, tea and a time machine."

I told her, I could arrange the first two, but I couldn't give her the third, though maybe Michael who lives down the street would be able to help with that. He may keep the DeLorean there between movies.

She had attempted a smile at that, and then I had led her to my room. I gave her a fresh towel and an old sweater, and then pointed her in the direction of my ensuite.

While she's in there I call The Pit, Nat can tell somethings up, he's always able to read us. He puts me through to Brandon without his usual reminder to both of us that there are customers

"Hey man everything okay?"

"No brother it's not. I've got Brenda here at mine, I found her when I was leaving detention today. She was a block away from your house crying. McKay is a bigger ass than I even imagined.

"Shit. I knew she'd be upset. I probably should have tried to change my shift."

"You knew?" Seriously, he knew and let her do this alone, not give her the heads up.

"Dylan kind of inferred it today. That I needed to take care of my sister. I guess he told her that he chose Kelly."

"Ass doesn't do it justice it's offensive to regular idiots. McKay's a fucking jerk, pretending he cares for, and then asking you to clean up his mess after he destroyed her-"

"Hey Man, I don't like it either but the girls are the one's who said for him to decide they are the ones who put themselves in this position." He's defending that shit, and that stupid pick me crap.

"Brandon, it's so much worse than that. McKay and Kelly have been seeing each other for months-"

"They all have, in their weird no touching but three musketeer thing-"

"No Brother. In the fooling around while Brenda was off in Paris, secret meetings when she got back kind of way. Kelly and Dylan have been messing around for over seven months when he was still supposedly madly in love and exclusively dating your sister, when he was still turning up at your family dinners playing the perfect boyfriend. Fuck, she even threw that loser a birthday party, while he's off having secret rendezvous with Kelly."

He's quite on the phone.I get the need to process, this is a betrayal of us all, "are you sure man?"

"They admitted it to her today. Walked her to the park blocks away from your house, told her they were together then he admitted to the affair. Didn't even have the balls to tell her that alone. Two years together, her putting up with his drinking, his family stuff, her defending him to your Dad; hell he stayed with you guys how many times? And this is what he does in return. He's a fucking selfish asshole, always has been."

"Steve!" Yeah, Brandon might be a Boy Scout it might go against that code to speak badly of friends, but McKay is no friend to anyone. He has no loyalty.

"Don't Brandon, don't defend him. Just think of everything your sister and you, your family have done for him, for her, and then think how we all told Brenda that Dylan could see whoever he wanted. How we listened to him when he said that it was her fault that she broke up with him, and him seeing Kelly was innocent. Hell less than two weeks ago we were at McKay's house and you were giving him shit for having women problems, not being able to decide. If you knew he had been cheating on your sister for months with her best friend would you have still wanted them together, still found it funny that he had all the power and was leading her on?"

He's quiet again, but when he finally speaks it's with a different tone, it's the same sadness the same realisation that our gang had just been wrecked by these two, but worse this was his sister. You can't be a team if you can't trust someone to have your back, and betraying her and involving us in it, making us play along with the deceit, throwing friendship and loyalty back in peoples face's it's too much. "How is my twin? Damn, stupid question she'd be… well devastated doesn't even cover it-"

"Brandon she's… she's broken. I didn't know she could ever look that small, I didn't know. She's always such a force, confident and sure of herself, tells people stuff that they may not be ready to hear, a firecracker; remember her going off on Emily? She's not her anymore, she's…"

"That's Bren, when you see behind the curtain you understand that she's often just trying to hold it altogether be the perfect daughter, the perfect student… Valerie our friend in Buffalo, as well as me and Dylan have only ever seen this side of her, occasionally she has shown glimpses of it to Dad."

"McKay knows her like this and still did this to her? Still told her publicly in front of Kelly? Fuck, if you don't punch that asshole the next time you see him then I'm going to. If I didn't find her today she'd have been alone like this."

"Yeah, and she may never have told us everything. She would have been ashamed to tell us and wouldn't want to burden us with it, she'd had licked her wounds quietly and eventually put on a brave face. Brenda doesn't like to let anyone think they have power over her or that she'd need hell. Look man, the dinner rush is about to start. Can you take care of her for me, tell her I love her and that I'll be by as soon as it's quiet to get her. Tell her… tell her he's not and she's not who we thought they were. She didn't do anything to deserve this, it's on them, we trusted the wrong people."

I know the last bit hurt him, I know because it hurt me to hear it, to witness the havoc that these two caused. Brandon and Dylan they had a bond, a bond I always thought was forged in the knowledge that they'd be brothers family for life, made official when Bren and Mackay married. For Brando to say that it it would have cost him.

Fuck, why couldn't they be honest from the start? If he wanted Kelly why go back to Brenda? Why not start officially dating Kelly back in early November when they broke up? Why has he needed months and months of leading Brenda on if he wanted Kelly? If she was so important to him why not declare it over with Brenda? It fucking doesn't make sense, Bren gave him so many outs and Kelly's there on a silver platter, why did he need to twist this all up to be so fucking shady, such a betrayal of everyone?

The tea is lukewarm by the time she makes it downstairs wearing her jeans and my oversized sweater. She is nearly finished the cup when my Mum walks in. She can see Brenda's dry but puffy eyes and asks if she is okay, it sets Bren off. I tell the story. Repeating in detail the whole thing, knowing the full version makes it sound so shady, even to me, it makes it seem like a cruel taunt on Brenda by the both of them.

My Mum feels the same way, Rush was not a one woman kind of man even if he made a marriage vow to be. My Mum had learned that the hard way, she had been in Brenda's situation, well not her best friend but my Nanny, her Assistant, his Assistant, her costar. Rush had made her paranoid about everyone in our lives, it's why she divorced him, she said when you don't believe a word out of anyone's lips you start to feel like your going deranged. She said no man was worth that. She left before it could set in, that she lost all trust in people. She never dated anyone seriously again.

No one could ever say Samantha Sanders didn't know how to be a fantastic mother, hell she was the American poster of it for a decade. Watching her comfort Bren, taking her into the kitchen for more tea, for cookies, I could see how my Mum would have loved if I had a sister. She'd have loved a big family around her. When Brandon arrives, I'm more angry at the two of them. Brenda's amazing, she's not all confidence and strength, she's so much different behind the curtain.

"Hey, she okay?"

"She's in the kitchen with my Mum, she had some Thai soup but she hasn't eaten much. Soup and maybe two cookies, though she more held them and broke off crumbs."

"She doesn't eat when she's like this. Ice cream is for problem solving and comfort but not this. She barely ate after Aunt Shelia and after Bobby's accident. When she's in shock and overwhelmed her stomach can't take food."

"She keeps trying to justify it, trying to figure out what she did wrong. I keep telling her she didn't do anything it's on them."

"Welcome to my sister's inner brain. She's hard on everyone, calls people on so much bullshit, but she's the hardest on herself. She'll believe it's on her that she made him cheat, that Kelly hurt her because she wasn't a good enough friend. She'll never say it to them but she'll own the blame because she'll think in someway she caused it all."

"That's messed up."

"Yeah."