He tightened his hold on the gate finial, glowering at the imposing building with its Georgian stucco front. Forest green ivy, pasted to the exterior. A scarlet letterbox.
The bustle of Leicester Square in the distance.
The scent of freshly made kebabs lingering in the air, from the corner chippy.
Lamb.
Had to be lamb.
No.
Fuck no.
Not here.
Why did it have to be here?
He wasn't going in. He refused to go in.
It was a dream, he knew. He had been getting damn good about figuring those out, knowing when he was asleep and when he was awake even without looking at the age lines etched upon his skin.
Dream or not, there was no fucking way he would step foot in that flat.
Didn't matter how many great memories it had. Didn't matter that it had been his home. Didn't matter that every corner of that flat had been properly christened.
By him.
By her.
By the perfervid love they had shared between them, once upon a time in a land far away.
Under a different flag.
A different national anthem.
A place where they made their own family, when everyone else was an ocean away.
He could see her. Newly twenty three.
And him. He saw himself.
Crying.
Fighting.
They were fighting.
"Oh fuck, is this some kind of sick joke? I don't wanna see this shit. It was terrible enough the first time."
He spun around so fast, he nearly toppled over.
Brenda.
Thirty-six. Curved. Gorgeous curves, but no longer expecting.
"Bren," he said on the crisp breeze of the November afternoon.
"Wake up," she said. "Come on, Brenda. Wake the fuck up. You get a choice. You don't have to see this shit. You don't have to see him choose the drugs over you, again. You have a beautiful, kind lad waiting for you to wake up. Just do it."
A beautiful, kind lad who didn't know who the fuck his own wife was, Dylan wanted to scream, though he didn't understand why.
"I never chose the drugs over you," he said, projecting his voice.
She stilled. "Dylan?"
"Right beside you."
His hand slid through her waist, into the chilled air.
Fucking fantastic. He could feel the frigid temperatures of the last autumn they spent together, but not his Brenda.
"Been a while," she said.
"Yeah. It has."
He had sought to dream her up for days. Weeks. Maybe even a month, he wasn't sure.
"Still trying to get me back?" she asked.
"Not trying, Bren. Succeeding."
"I still say you should give it up."
"And I still say fuck no."
"Kinda like in there." Brenda used her pinkie finger to indicate towards the window.
Just admit you don't trust me, Dylan, Brenda had said.
Fuck no, Bren. I'm not gonna admit that, because it isn't fucking true.
Oh really? Then why the fuck are you so convinced I'm gonna leave you for Ernesto? You don't trust me, Dylan, whether you want to admit it or not.
"It was never about that. The asshole had his sights set on you from day one, and you refused to see it," said Dylan, longing to shut up his younger self before it all came to blows.
The last time he had ever seen his old Brenda, outside of magazines and television interviews, and he was about to send a meteor hurtling down onto himself.
"I fucked us up this day." Dylan hung his head, though he knew neither Brenda could see. "You had forgiven me for everything, forgave me for cheating on you, loved me again, let me love you again, and I went and fucked us up. Again."
"I wanted to help you, Dylan." Brenda's voice was neutral; her eyes, downcast. "You were hurting. I didn't know why, you wouldn't tell me why, but I wanted to help you, like I thought I had before."
"You did, Bren. I'll never find the words to tell you how much you helped me after Toni's death."
"And then; and then you raged on Ernesto like you were in a fucking brawl, like you were Rynders and he was Macready, and I saw a side of you I'd never seen before that scared the shit out of me. When I found your stash, it all made sense, sort of. But you refused to get help and I couldn't live like that."
"I know." He plucked a pansy out of their old window box. "Do you see this?"
"The floating pansy?"
"I'm holding it."
"God, you're close," she breathed.
"Close enough to do this." Without once touching her, Dylan tucked the black-and-dark purple pansy behind Brenda's ear. "Do you feel that?"
She grazed her fingers along the flower, hesitantly nodding.
"How close are you?" she asked.
"Close enough to kiss you, if it were an option."
"Would you?"
"Fuck yeah, I would. I'd make out with you all night and then some, if I could."
"Have you tried?"
He tried.
And kissed air.
"I wish I could see you," she said.
"I wish I could touch you."
"I won't remember any of this when I wake up." She twirled her hair between her fingers, a nervous habit that had always resulted in his taking those fingers to his lips. "I never do."
"Yeah." A chainsaw bulldozed through him. "I don't, either. But right now, we have tonight and tonight, until my fucking four-thirty wakeup call, we're gonna hash shit out."
"Hash what out?"
"Everything, baby. We're gonna hash out everything." Dylan held out a blue pansy between his fingers to have Brenda follow him down the street to their spot, in their favorite square, beside their favorite bookshop. "I don't want you to go one more second thinking we shouldn't be together," he lay the pansy on her lap, "thinking I didn't love you, or thinking that I'm desperate for Kelly when it's all a giant sack of shit steaming in the fucking Sahara."
He had to stay cool, had to remind himself why Brenda believed the falsities she believed.
Because of him.
Because he had believed those falsities once, too; all except the one where he didn't love her.
That had never once been true, and he hoped he hadn't ever given her the impression.
"Monaghan got you," said Dylan, "he got the family I wanted with you. Gets to hold you, gets to kiss you, gets to love you. Because he didn't fuck up his chances, like I did. He didn't cheat on you. He didn't take you for granted. He didn't realize you were the best days of his life after you wanted those days with someone else. But he must've pissed off the fairies over something, because they decided that wasn't good enough." His chest seemed made of glass, liable to shatter at any moment. "And I'm not gonna make the same mistakes now I made then, but this Bren, the one I see almost daily, the one I still have a shot of making my wife, that Bren won't ever know anything I've done. You do know. You're the Bren I've loved, the Bren I let down, the Bren I think might merge into one with the Bren I know now when I succeed in the task set before me. And I will succeed, Bren; that I promise you. I've hurt Brenda Monag - you so many times in so many ways. If I only have my dreams to apologize, then I'm taking full advantage."
"I hurt you, too," Brenda admitted. "Cheated on you, twice. Broke up with you, thrice; four times, if you count when I thought we were moving back to Minnesota. You went to Kelly the second we broke up. I went to Rick."
"Nothing you did is anywhere close to what I did, Bren."
"But I still did it. My actions still hurt you. That can't just be swept under the rug to justify the hurt you caused me. I don't need to justify anything I felt then or feel now, and I don't need to pretend I'm a saint when it comes to our relationship, either. You're allowed to be hurt. I'm allowed to be hurt."
"Our relationship? Are you admitting we have a relationship?"
"We clearly have something, if you keep forcing your way into my dreams."
"Yeah, okay. Forcing. You don't want me here at all. Obviously. That's why we met outside our old flat and watched our last fight, instead of standing outside the house with the turquoise door you share with the guy you say is your husband."
"It's not like I didn't try to dream about Connor. You're just hogging all of my sleep."
"Whatever, Brenda."
"And how do you know my house has a turquoise door?" she asked accusingly, surveying the air around them as if Dylan were a member of the paparazzi she had found stalking in a bush behind her home.
"Saw it in a dream," he said flippantly.
"Great. Now I can't even keep my house out of your dreams." She shook her head, dark waves cascading down her shoulders. "You cheated. I cheated. Brandon cheated on Kelly. Kelly cheated on; well, a lot of guys, I'm not gonna name them all. Steve cheated on Celeste. David cheated on Donna, and kissed her when he was with Val. Val cheated on Steve; hell, even Andrea cheated on Jesse, and Jesse on her. Dylan, do you get the point I'm trying to make here?"
"I think so." He sighed. "You left out Donna."
"Donna cheated?"
"She made out with your brother on TV when she was dating that asshole ex of hers. I'd say that's cheating, but they'd probably say it was acting."
"Hold up. Donna and my brother made out?"
"Oh yeah. Massively."
Brenda took a moment to recover from her shock and digest the information.
"Did any of them cheat with their other half's best friend, Dylan?"
"Yes," he allowed.
"Yes," she echoed. "Who was that?"
"Kelly," he said meekly.
"Kelly. Cheated on you with your best friend, and then cheated on your best friend with -"
"With me."
"You cheated on me with my best friend. Kelly turned around and did the same thing, twice. What about the others? Did they?"
"Val."
"Yeah. Val. Cheated on Steve, with you. Steve cheated with a girl Celeste didn't know. David cheated with a girl Donna barely knew."
"And Jesse didn't know Andrea's affair at all…I think."
"What's wrong with us, Dylan? Why did every single one of us cheat on somebody, including Andrea? Why did it have to be with best friends? Why out of all of us, were Steve and David the ones to learn from their mistakes?"
"I don't know, babe. Wish I did. Wish I could excuse it all somehow. But if I want a future with you, then I need to make honesty top priority, even when we meet like this in our dreams. And I can't be honest with the you you are now because none of this shit has happened. All I can do is talk to you about it in our dreams and so," he dug his nails into his palm, the blood galloping to his head, "here goes."
He told Brenda then: what he had said to Kelly regarding their cheating on the twins; that it was what they did, who they were. That he had said the statement with pride. That he had used it as a method to persuade Kelly back to him. That he and Kelly had cheated on Matt Durning, on Gina Kincaid, with each other.
He told her about all the women he had cheated on, that he made the playboys of Tinsel Town look like monogamous bachelors. That he had disregarded the relationships with all of his brothers for hookups with their respective women.
That, as the years dragged on, he had hated himself for it.
He told Brenda about the replacements, how he had used brunettes and blondes, even some redheads and women with hair colored straight out of a box, to get over her.
Unsuccessfully.
Then he told her the other part: that he had stood on the stoop of Casa Walsh, asking Kelly What If. What if they hadn't cheated on Brenda. A what-if Kelly took as a come-on. A what-if Dylan had meant wholeheartedly.
A what-if he had considered so frequently that Fate had been sympathetic enough to answer.
"We're not supposed to get answers to our what-ifs, Dylan," said Brenda after a pregnant pause that unnerved him. "Do-overs aren't supposed to be granted. That isn't how life is supposed to work."
"But it is how life worked. I haven't cheated on you. You haven't cheated on me. Brandon hasn't cheated on anyone -"
"With Emily Valentine, of all people; I swear he wasn't in his right mind at the time, I still don't get how he could fall for the girl who purposely drugged him, just like Josh Hunter did to Val, and don't get me started on Brandon and that Emma woman -"
Dumbfounded that Val had been drugged, and by a Hunter, Dylan broke in to ask if the Hunter had any relation to the old owner of the After Dark nightclub, Noah.
"You didn't ask about Val when you returned?" said Brenda. "That experience is what made things start to crash and burn with her and David."
"I guess I didn't," said Dylan, kicking himself. "I had no idea. David left her because she was drugged?"
"No. That's not even close to what happened. He stood by her when no one else would, including my idiot brother. Val started to shut David out, until he felt it best that they part ways before they fucked up their friendship beyond repair."
"Sounds familiar," said Dylan.
Brenda chewed at her lower lip. "Val's husband is a great guy and he loves her to death. She loves him, too, but I know she's never fallen out of love with David. She made herself move on, when David decided to commit himself to Donna."
"That's even more familiar," he choked out. "None of that with Val, with David, has happened, Bren. Steve hasn't cheated on Celeste. David hasn't cheated on Donna; they aren't even together at all yet. And Kel; Kelly will be lucky if anyone wants to cheat with her, with the way she's been treating people. Which reminds me," he extracted a pillow out of thin air, pressing it against Brenda's abdomen as a way to latch on to her, "why did you never tell me what Kelly said to you at your sleepover?"
She blanched. "You know about that?"
"Yeah. I do now. You told me this time, after I needled it out of you when Steve let it slip that Kelly had said something."
"How did Steve know?"
"Amanda got the grapevine churning."
"I knew she was awful."
"Brenda. You're deflecting."
She focused on the bare branches of a tree. "What was I supposed to say, Dylan? You'd made your decision. Chosen Kelly. Made sure you were both there when my world tumbled into the sea faster than Atlantis."
"Bren, you had no problem telling me and her that you hated me and her and never wanted to see either me or her again."
"Are you intentionally avoiding referring to you and Kelly as an 'us?'"
"Your attempt at distraction isn't going to work."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, baby." The sarcasm that spewed from Brenda could ice over a pond in August. "What should I have said? 'Congratulations, Kel; you always wanted him, he always wanted you, and now you can both burn in Hell, for all I care?' Would that have sufficed? It wouldn't've changed anything."
"Or maybe it would've made me think twice on how that summer started."
"I should've known we didn't stand a chance when you needed to be forced to choose. My bad for thinking our relationship meant more to you than a summer fling, that I meant more to you than a summer fling."
"Brenda, you meant everything to me. Maybe too much. I'm not just paying you lip service here."
"Maybe if we'd gone to kindergarten together like you and Kelly, then we would've -"
"Fuck kindergarten," he cut in. "Kelly might've always wanted me, but I didn't always want her."
Look, it was you two who gave me that dumb ultimatum.
"Fucking," said Dylan, "that fucking ultimatum, the same fucking ultimatum Tiffany and Kelly gave Steve."
"What?" asked Brenda, but the audio continued rolling.
You said choose. I chose. I chose you. I want you. I've always wanted you.
Fuck.
He watched the giant theatre screen replay to Brenda the night he had chosen Kelly in that fucking pool with one of his many lies.
"Alright, so we're conjuring up screens now, are we?" he asked.
"You conjure up pillows; I conjure up truth screens."
"Then I suggest you rewind it a bit."
Dylan, what if Brenda had come tonight?
She didn't.
So is that how you made up your mind, 'cause she's not here?
Maybe.
"Ass," said Brenda. "I see no difference between the guy in the pool and the guy who I heard pretended we never had a connection."
Asking her how she had heard wouldn't be the best idea, though the thought did claw at him.
"Donna." She had read his mind. Whatever had happened between them, she could still read his mind, and, in doing so, unintentionally proved to Dylan that he had chosen the right path back to her. "I was on the phone with Donna when Kelly called her to share what you said. Donna had called me up after you told her; oh, what was it? To 'ask her' when Donna asked you how I was?"
"I meant your theatre troupe. H.E.R. Heraldic Entertainers of RADA."
"Come on, Dylan. That's lame, even for you."
"But I did!"
"Took me a bit to call her back," Brenda ignored his protest, "and by that point, you and Kelly had played a lovely little game of Battleship."
Shit. Brenda had heard it all.
Donna had returned to the call with Brenda thinking she was speaking with Kelly. Brenda had fallen silent and hung up.
"You're a fucking ass," said Brenda. "A sodding git. A gobshite eejit. Wanker. Tosser."
She continued throwing around a few more insults in a language he couldn't understand, possibly Irish.
"Are you done?" he asked.
"Enculé," she finished with a flourish, in French.
That one, he knew.
"I'll grant you that," he said. "I was an ass, both times. A liar. A fucking hypocrite. I won't pretend otherwise. I won't excuse it. You didn't deserve anything I said then. All you did was love me, and I let you down, over and over again. But it was never about a lack of feeling for you. I think there's something you need to see." He waved his hand over the screen in the motion of a clock hand turning backwards.
Bren said she'll be here.
Um, she can't make it, either.
She said she was coming.
I know. She didn't call you back?
No. What?
Um…she wanted to come, really. Her dad made a big deal. You know how it is.
Yeah, unfortunately I do.
Dylan.
Hey, it's not important.
"Kelly actually told you the reason I couldn't come? What the fuck? She knew everything. She knew the drama with Dad, what it did to us. Why would she tell you?"
"Drama? You think what happened with Jimbo was just drama? You don't know the half of it, Brenda."
"Then tell me, Dylan. Make me understand. Make it part of this hashing out thing."
"I'll do better than that. I'll show you."
I think I've been pretty damn tolerant. From your bouts with alcohol, and when Brenda was scared she was pregnant.
Fury began to seep into Brenda's features. Dylan continued to eye her, terrified she would dissipate if he looked away for even a second.
You've known me for a while now, Mr. Walsh. Am I such a bad person?
Dylan! You broke a trust. And until I feel that that trust is repaired; you can come to the wedding today, but after that, I don't want you seeing Brenda. Period. Final. The end.
"Shit," said Brenda, "the wedding. That's what you were talking about when you said Dad made you feel the way Jack did?"
"If only it had ended there, Bren."
Another wave.
Dylan, sitting in a chair at Jim's office. Jim, walking around, throwing around false charges of -
"What the fuck?" yelled Brenda, flipping off her father's visual image. "It was consensual. We were consensual!"
"I wanted you, Bren. I did. I really, truly did. I wanted you so much, too much, that it scared the fucking shit out of me. The problem was, I didn't know how to handle it. How to handle your dad, handle that Romeo and Juliet shit we were dealing with. And when McKays can't handle shit, we avoid it completely. We skip town. Flee the country. Stop all communication. I loved you, and still love you, more than I ever knew possible. I couldn't handle it. So I ran to what I thought was easy, without considering what the fuck I was doing and what it would do to the woman of my literal dreams. Ironic part is, it wasn't easy. It was a shitshow with Kelly, from beginning to end. We hurt a fuck ton of people; none more than you, and your brother. None more than my best friends, my Walsh twins."
"End? I thought you two were probably married, or at least engaged. Val was convinced you were gonna crash the wedding, and when you didn't -"
"Wait." He swore a brigade of Arthurian knights had pinned him down to be cursed by Merlin. "You expected me to crash your wedding?"
"Val expected it and started to make me think so, too, but it doesn't matter. You didn't."
Because of the guilt, he told her. Because as much as he wanted to crash that fucking wedding, throw Brenda over his shoulder and speed off on his motorcycle with Brenda's dress billowing out behind them, he had been inundated with guilt at the mere thought.
"I didn't want to ruin things for you, like I always manage to do. I can never apologize enough for that summer, for that year, for hooking up with Kelly again after this, after London. But I need you to know that I fucking loved you then, and I fucking love you now, even if you don't love me. Even if you're madly in love with that fucking idiot you call a husband. I don't deserve this chance. I know I don't, but I've still been given it. I will do everything I possibly can to not fuck this up again, to ensure it's you and I for every past and all eternity. Because right now, on the precipice of our junior year, you do love me, and I'm clinging to that."
"I did love you then. I've always loved you, Dylan. I don't want to. I really don't want to. But I gave up trying to stop a long time ago."
"Don't say that just to appease me, Bren. I know you don't love me. You're mad we're even in the same dream, and you declined my fucking friend request."
"Wait." Brenda's hand jetted out, like she was attempting to reach for him. "That was you? I thought -"
A cry penetrated the air, causing Brenda to sit upright.
A cry that sounded exactly like a baby's cry.
It couldn't be.
He was over at the Walshes for the night, sans babies, and Brenda -
Brenda had miscarried, he had heard the words straight from Valerie Malone's lips.
"Brenda. What is that?"
It was coming back to him; the conversations he had overheard in that house with the turquoise door, the words he and his Madster had said.
Brenda; she hadn't been there.
There there, a leanbh. Bren will soon awaken. For now, let us permit her sleep as our Bren regains her strength.
A searing hatred filled Dylan for the owner of the thick Irish, male lilt that infiltrated their city.
And whatever the fuck a leanbh was.
"I gotta go, Dylan."
He noticed an item peeking out from her denim jacket.
A harp. It was a harp, strung across a necklace.
A harp bearing the likeness of the cloud he had seen with the younger Brenda.
"Hang on." He wanted to ask what she meant by her shock over the friend request, what the harp meant, who the fuck had dared to speak her name in the same way he always had; but there was a topic he had to inquire of much greater importance. "Last time we met, you said something about eighteen, that you were in eighteen. Eighteen what?" He was frantic for information before she disappeared again. "Louisiana, the eighteenth state? The eighteenth arrondissement of Paris? Latvia, the eighteenth country to join the EU? The eighteenth block of a city? The eighteenth street in New York? Brenda, I went to your house. I know you weren't there, that someone was there pretending to be you, that fucking Monaghan was totally clueless. Where the fuck are you?"
The cry became insistent.
"Seriously, Dylan, I gotta go." Brenda pulled her jacket around her, shielding her breasts from him.
The breasts his teeth had loved to tug at were now…leaking?
Leaking a chalk-white substance.
Milk? Brenda was leaking milk?
"We'll meet again," she said. "Maybe."
Maybe the voice did belong to Monaghan. Dylan had always turned off the television or turned it on mute when Brenda's solo red carpet interviews were interrupted by her tugging of Monaghan into the frame.
Dylan didn't even know what the guy actually sounded like.
The voice could have easily been his. The other dream could have been just that: a dream. Not a message Maddie tried to deliver, but a wish manifesting itself in Dylan's sleep.
Although he hoped he wouldn't go as far as to manifest Brenda having a miscarriage.
"Brenda Analiese Walsh-Mona - Walsh." Dylan refused to use her married name. "You asked me to help you. How the fuck can I help you if I don't fucking know where you are?"
Maybe it wasn't milk. Maybe it was snow. Brenda could be filled with snow.
Or clouds.
If she was filled with clouds, then that meant…
Oh fuckety fuck fuck.
"Brenda," his heart rammed into his trachea, "Bren, you are still - you are still alive, aren't you?"
"Sort of," she said.
"Sort of?" His lungs shut off. He struggled for air, though air surrounded him. "What the fuck does sort of mean? The miscarriage…baby, did we lose you in the miscarriage?"
Had he seen her ghost in that Irish house?
Was he speaking to her ghost now?
"Goddammit, Brenda! I said you look like an angel. That wasn't an invitation for you to become one!" he burst out.
"And I'm supposed to be the dramatic one," she said, just before vanishing in a gust of winter wind.
Eight hour time difference between Los Angeles, California and Cork, Ireland, not including Dylan's life in the past and Brenda's in the future.
He didn't know what kind of time difference that created; assuredly much more than eight hours.
Assuming she did still have a life at all.
Bearing a perpetually broken heart that had seen better days, Dylan waited for the alarm.
Which did come, even if it took its sweet-ass time.
But not in the form of Brandon's clock radio.
"Rise and shine, boys! Brandon, if you don't hurry up and get your ass out of bed, Bren and I are gonna ditch all of you and take the van for a joyride."
"Yeah right," said Brandon, "not after I paid for that rental, you aren't."
"Hey," said Dylan, rubbing his eyes as they adjusted to the shadows of the room, "I offered to pay for the van."
"It was my idea to go camping," said Brandon. "Therefore, I pay for the van."
"Well, whoever paid for the van, can you get out here and help with finishing the packing?" Brenda staggered in, palming at her bedhead. "Otherwise, what's the point of waking me up at this ungodly hour?" she added with an enormous yawn.
Even with the bedhead, she could easily buckle Dylan over with a single look in his direction.
"Oh, babe, the sunrise is well worth it."
"For nature lovers, maybe," Brenda grumbled.
All three looked at her.
"What?" she asked.
"Surfing," said Dylan.
"Fishing," said Brandon.
"And rappelling off mountains," added the girl who had called Brenda babe.
Brenda scoffed.
"You can rappel off all the mountains you want to rappel off of, Val. I don't rappel."
"You could rappel off of that," said Valerie Malone, pointing to Dylan's bare abs shaped by years of primo surfing. "Yum. If Dylan were a Kit-Kat bar, I'd break me off -"
"Well Dylan's not a Kit-Kat bar," Brenda hastened to interrupt, "and you said you were gonna be good."
"What? I am being good. I could start flirting with Brandon in front of you, if that would make you less jealous."
"I'm not jealous," said Brenda. "I just don't rappel off of anything, including Dylan's abs."
"But you went skydiving, with the blonde."
"I told you, we practically shoved each other out of that plane."
"I would've shoved her, too, after what she told you."
"The skydiving happened before that."
"And I'm supposed to believe this girl was your LA best friend? Didn't she talk you into stealing Mondale to go get her from some awful date? If I'd asked you to steal Brandon's car for me, you woulda kicked my ass."
"It's way too early to start this," said Brenda. "I should still be asleep."
"I could join you for a catnap," suggested Dylan.
"How cute is he?" said Valerie.
"Val."
"Bren, I've only been here for one whole night and I've already seen how crazy in love this guy is with you. He helped you with the dishes, Bren. The dishes!"
The girls continued their banter all the way down the hall, whilst Dylan grinned at Brandon.
"What was that you said about getting Val's approval?"
"Listen, McKay, that's the fastest stamp of approval Valerie has ever given anyone, and only because you decided to help Bren with the dishes, so if you do anything to wreck it, you better watch your back with Val."
"You think I would do something to wreck it?"
"No, especially since I hope you know that was a double warning, from me and from Twin Three."
"Brandon, if; no, when, I finally convince Bren to take me back, I'll thank the universe every day for giving her to me."
"Morning, boys," chirped a third voice.
Brandon moved to quickly cover a sheet over his own shirtless frame. "Hey, Donna," he said. "Did Val wake you?"
"Oh no," said Donna sweetly, "I've been up. I love early mornings. Winter mornings at the family cabin were my favorite. It's the perfect time to hear the birds sing." She glanced around the room, and over the hallway. "Where did Bren go?"
"Check downstairs. She and Val might've gone to get a second duffel to fit my boots."
"Okay. Thanks, Bran."
As the skip in Donna's footsteps faded, Dylan turned an X-ray vision on Brandon that made Clark Kent's X-ray vision a cheap parlor trick.
"What?" asked Brandon.
"B, you've been jumpy around Donna a lot since the accident. Is there something you wanna share?"
"Not really," said Brandon. "I just didn't think Silver would want the girl he has a crush on to see me shirtless, that's all."
"Uh-huh," said Dylan skeptically. "So you're still into Stacey then, right?"
"Huh?" asked Brandon, distracted by watching the door. "Oh, yeah. Stacey."
"Steve's ex," said Dylan.
"I know who Stacey is," said Brandon.
"C'mon, Kit-Kat." Valerie stood in the doorway, stretching out her bare legs toned by a lifetime of gymnastics. "Your not-girlfriend is about to topple over."
Dylan rose to his feet in seconds. "She okay?" he asked, alarmed.
"She's half-asleep and refusing Donna's shoulder in the unlikely event that she hurts Donna."
"I'm on it," said Dylan, smiling at Brenda's siblings.
A full fifteen minutes passed before Dylan managed to talk Brenda into climbing on his back. Even-paced breaths told him she had returned to her sleep, and he turned his head to swipe a butterfly kiss upon her nose.
"Damn. You've got it bad," said Valerie.
"You have no idea," said Dylan, grasping Brenda's legs.
Bren has no idea. She'll never have any idea of just how crazy I am about her, because she'll never know I literally crossed time to have these moments with her again.
Fuck, I wish I could tell her. Wish I could be completely honest with her, no matter how she would take it.
How the fuck can I tell her about shit that's never happened, that will never happen?
"You're right. I don't," said Val, who had quickly lost her cheerful demeanor.
"I didn't mean it like that," Dylan rushed out.
"Don't worry about it," she said with a masked smile that would make an actor cringe.
Dylan combed over what he knew about Valerie. Her father wasn't dead. Her relationship with her parents might still be tenuous, particularly since he had heard the Walsh parents discussing Abby and Victor Malone's suggestion to have Valerie move in with the Walshes three years earlier than last time and attend West Bev with the rest of them.
Brenda would be overjoyed.
Brenda - his dream. Brenda had said something. Something about her. Something about Val.
Something.
That was all he knew, that she had said something.
That he had said something.
That they had watched…something.
They had stood in London, outside their old flat. He could recall that much.
Fucking somethings. Never any certainties. Never any knowledge retained of his dreams.
Each dream pieced together a jigsaw puzzle, he was sure of it - a puzzle brought back together only whilst he slept.
There had to be a way, had to be some method he could use to remember exactly what was spoken in the dreams, especially if it helped him to help Bren.
Iris would know.
Maybe.
He couldn't ask her, not yet. It wasn't a topic to be discussed over the phone, and Iris had told Nat she wouldn't be arriving until closer to Dylan's birthday.
When he and Brenda planned to tell her about their visions.
Would Iris be able to tell who her son really was? Would she see through the mask of his young skin?
A plethora of questions swam about in Dylan's mind, none of which could be answered at that moment.
Instead, continuing to hold Brenda, he watched Donna and Steve argue over the luggage Donna had packed for the trip.
Steve said Donna's luggage wouldn't leave room for anyone else's. Donna reminded Steve how lucky they were that she was able to join in the camping at all. Steve agreed. Kelly observed with interest, and perhaps confusion, as Donna and Steve had kept it quiet with the others about their parents' affair, as well as the consequent bond forming between them.
Brandon introduced Val to the gang. Kelly sized Val up. Val, in turn, sized up Kelly; both girls seemingly taking an instant dislike towards each other.
"I hear you like to say shit to my best friend," said Val, nose scrunched up as if Kelly had gone spelunking and forgotten to shower afterward, "and still pretend she's yours."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Kelly.
"Val, that's not being nice."
"Bren, she isn't particularly nice to you, is she?"
"Val. Stop."
Now wide awake, Brenda moved off of Dylan's back to help Brandon figure out seating arrangements.
Reina had, thankfully, declined, if only for the sole reason that swim practice had begun. Stacey Jacobson was now out of the picture, lest Brandon bring her back into it. Matt Nguyen had become fed up with Kelly's constant eyeing of Brandon and Steve and had declared between them a break. Robinson had accepted Donna's invitation to come along, and stood chatting with Andrea about a staff photographer position open at the Blaze.
Andrea seemed determined to get all of them on the Blaze, in some form or other.
"Where's Silver?" asked Steve. "He's gonna make us late. If we don't get out of here soon, traffic's gonna be a nightmare."
"Bren and I are going up in the Porsche," said Dylan. "We can fit one or two more."
"I'll go," said Val. "Gotta make sure Kit-Kat here doesn't get my girl lost in the mountains. Californian boys don't know much about mountains, do they?"
"Kit-Kat?" asked Kelly.
"We have mountains," said Steve, eyeing Val. "Mountains, beach, desert, tundra; you name it, we've got it."
"Sanders is exaggerating on the tundra part," said Dylan.
"You ever been up north in the winter, McKay? It's freaking freezing before you even hit Oregon!"
"You don't know freezing 'til you've been in Buffalo," said Valerie.
"Or in an Irish winter," piped in Brenda.
"Bren, you've never been to Ireland," said a perplexed Brandon.
"Right. Yeah," said Brenda, who looked just as puzzled as her twin at the words that had flown from her mouth. "Uh, Grandma always told us that Granda had said that, remember? The biting winter cold of Ireland, that damp cold cuts right through you."
Dylan didn't buy the explanation Brenda peddled.
What the fuck have you been dreaming about, Bren? thought Dylan. Monaghan? Fucking Monaghan? Are you dreaming about your life with him?
That life isn't gonna happen. Ever.
"Okay so maybe Ireland feels colder than Buffalo, but don't let Brandon trick you 'cause there's no way Minnesota's colder," said Valerie, moving along the conversation. "I've lived in both and Buffalo takes the cake. I see your mountains. Raise you the Adirondacks, plus the Catskills."
"Adirondacks, schmirondacks," said Steve. "We have the Sierra Nevadas. The Lagunas. Santa Rosas, Palomars, Santa Anas; shit, I could go on."
"Stupid Santa Anas," muttered Brenda, again stunned at her own words.
"You alright, Bren?" asked Brandon.
"I think so," said Brenda.
Dylan zeroed in on her mind, trying to decipher what was scrolling through it.
"I think using Dylan's back as a pillow got your brain all muddled," teased Val, before turning back to Steve. "Have you ever even been in your mountains?" she inquired.
Steve admitted that he hadn't. It was revealed that none of them had, with the exception of Donna during multiple family trips.
"I think you and I are gonna get on well." Val smiled at Donna.
"I think so, too," said Donna.
"Come on, Donna." Kelly tucked her arm through Donna's with a glare to Val. "You've been spending so much time with Bren and Brandon since you left the hospital, and I get why because it's not like Jackie can necessarily take care of you while your parents can't even though you know I would've totally begged her to, but now we need to do some catching up of our own."
Val shrugged off Kelly's reaction and bounced over to speak with Andrea.
"I'd go with you guys, but Brandon's driving and the furthest north he's been in this state is the other side of the city," said Steve. "He'll end up in La Jolla."
"Walsh's sense of direction isn't that bad, Steve," said Dylan.
"Which one?" asked the three Walshes.
"Not you, obviously," said Val to Brenda.
"That wasn't too nice," said Kelly.
"That's good-natured ribbing with my twin sister about her terrible sense of direction that the whole family is well aware of," said Valerie haughtily. "Learn the difference and maybe don't ask her to steal my other twin's car with that middle school 'you're my best friend' shit."
"Val!" said Brenda.
Kelly set her hurt on Brenda.
"Kel…" Brenda tried.
Turning her back, Kelly climbed into the van.
"Thanks, Val," sniped Brenda. "So much for being my confidante."
"Anytime, babe," said Val. "You didn't move over to the Land of the Fabulously Rich and Annoyingly Famous and go soft on me, did you?"
"No, but Kel's the first friend I made here and -"
"- and even the cattiest girl back in Minnesota never tried to come between you and Brandon. Including Bethany Oberholtzer."
Brandon appeared quite fond at the memory of Bethany Oberholtzer, whoever she was.
"I don't think that's what she was doing."
"Same as she didn't try to come between you and Kit-Kat?"
"God," groaned Brenda. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Porsche."
"You didn't waste any time, Val, did you?" asked Brandon.
"Bran, if someone doesn't point out the problem with Bren's so-called friendship now, it's just gonna worsen in the future. You know I'm right. And I won't stand around waiting for Bren to bawl over anything that girl does."
Dylan was inclined to agree with Val, not only because he knew the exact extent of how toxic the friendship could become - largely due to himself - but because he continued to learn information about it he hadn't known before.
Like Brenda stealing Brandon's car, for Kelly.
What the fuck.
"Seriously. What the hell is taking Silver so long?" whined Steve. "Can we go without him, Brando?"
Brandon denied the request.
"Should we stick around 'til he gets here?" asked Dylan.
"Go ahead, D. We'll meet you up there."
"Alright. Drive safe, B. Got room for one more, if anyone wants to join me and the Walsh sisters."
"I'll go," said Robinson. "If that's cool," he added.
"One hundred percent," said Dylan.
"Is that okay with you, Don?" asked Robinson.
Donna appeared torn between riding in the Porsche or waiting for David.
Brandon watched Donna, trepidation swirling across his features.
"Donna," said Kelly with the same damn puppy dog eyes she had always tried with Dylan.
"Yeah, that's fine, Robinson." Donna gave him a thumbs-up. "I'll see you in Yosemite."
Steve raised a pale brow from where he stood leaning against a tree, talking to Andrea.
Kelly then began to scowl at Andrea.
Dylan hurried into the Porsche before he became further irritated with Kelly.
The car ride up was immensely more enjoyable than Dylan recalled of the incredibly awkward van ride where Brenda had made it a point to speak to everyone but him. Val kept the ride lively in persuading Robinson to carry most of the chatter with her. Val and Brenda engaged in various road trip games that resulted in Dylan's continued laughter, and, by Fresno, Valerie had gotten Brenda to reenact scenes from the play Val had been upset to miss.
They were the first to arrive at the rain-soaked, leaky cabin. Drops of that day's rainstorm pinged against metal pots. Despite the warmth of the outside, there stood a chill in the air.
It was the same shithole they had found themselves in the last time, and yet Dylan thought it couldn't have been more perfect.
Until Val stole Brenda to be her wingwoman for one of the guys she had seen hanging out nearby, whose license plate indicated he was from Alberta.
Dylan went with Robinson to find firewood, returning just in time for the entrance of the others.
He found Steve in a huff, perturbed with David for making the trip last longer than necessary.
Scott Scanlon had been invited, initially accepted, and then was forced to decline at the last-minute when his mother needed him for baby-sitting duties, said David.
Last-minute as in, David waiting in the driveway, with Scott's mother explaining why he couldn't go.
Brandon helped Dylan to start a fire in the fireplace. Donna and Andrea decided on sleeping arrangements, which Dylan was disappointed to learn didn't involve him sharing a sleeping bag with Brenda.
Kelly and Steve started to argue, as per usual, until they decided to continue their argument outside.
By the time Kelly came back, bringing Brenda, Valerie, and a pair of newlyweds with her, David had joined Steve and Andrea in purchasing food from a nearby shop. Steve had accepted David along only when David offered to pay, with the credit card his father Mel Silver had provided for the occasion.
The newlyweds, Allison and Neil, began to quarrel about Neil's desire to remain childless. This initiated a discussion on the appalling parenting experienced by the gang and what it meant to be a child of divorce. Kelly interrupted Donna, who had started to add in her own two cents.
When the newlyweds decided to leave to straighten out their issues sans the input of teenagers, Donna spoke up to ask Kelly the reason for the interruption.
"Because none of us needed to hear you brag about your parents' gold star marriage," said Kelly.
"I wasn't going to say that," said Donna. "My parents don't have a gold star marriage."
"Yeah right. They've been together the whole time I've known you. Your family is tighter than the Waltons. What do you know about messed-up marriages?" Kelly snipped.
"Plenty, actually," said Donna.
"Please. So your mom is super strict, so what? Most of us in this room wish we could be that lucky."
"Kelly!" said Brenda.
"That's not what I meant," said Donna, her lower lip quivering. "My family isn't as perfect as you think."
"Sure it isn't. West Bev's answer to Snow White with her perfect parents doesn't know anything about instability. The most unstable thing your family's done was get hit by a ship."
Gawking at Kelly, Donna's eyes held a sorrowful luster before she sprinted out of the cabin.
Robinson immediately chased after her.
"What?" Seeing the others' open jaws, Kelly's innocent doe eyes fluttered. "Donna's always going on about how her life is so perfect and her family doesn't have any problems. I didn't know she'd react like that."
"How was she supposed to react?" hissed Brenda. "What is wrong with you? That's the second time you've been a total bitch to Donna this summer. She's never done anything to you."
"And that's the second time you've called me a bitch," Kelly fumed.
"If you didn't act like a bitch to the girl who's supposed to be your best friend, I wouldn't call you a bitch."
"You're supposed to be my other best friend."
"Well, maybe I don't want a best friend who treats people the way you do," said Brenda. "Donna isn't your minion, Kelly, and neither am I."
"Fuck yeah!" said Val, clapping her hands. "That's my girl!"
"If you feel that way, then maybe we shouldn't be friends at all," said Kelly.
"Maybe we shouldn't." Brenda turned on her heel to go after Donna, with Val jogging behind.
Brandon pinned his severe disappointment on Kelly.
"Don't look at me like that, Brandon," she said.
"I really thought you were a nicer person than this, Kelly. Guess I was wrong."
"You said we were friends, Brandon. You said I was like a sister to you. Don't turn your back on me."
"Brenda's my real sister, Kelly. She's my twin, my best friend, my other half, and I'll choose her, every time."
Shaking his head, Brandon darted off after his twin.
"Dylan," pleaded Kelly.
"Don't," said Dylan, stepping back from Kelly's reach.
"But we've known each other for so long," she began.
"And let me guess, you expect me to side with you over the twins? I've heard the way you've talked to your so-called friends, Kelly. The question is, have you?"
"But Dylan, you've been flirting with me for years! Then Brenda comes along and suddenly she takes you, she takes Donna, she takes Tiffany, she takes Steve, she catches the eye of almost every guy in school; she even gets the approval of Ruthann freaking Simmons! And what do I get? Nothing! Brandon rejected me because of his sister. You barely even notice me. You're too swept up with being the Walshes' second son."
God, it was like senior year and CU's freshman year all over again.
How the fuck did we ever hook up at all?
Did I just ignore all the red flags?
Hot pink, neon flashing warning signs, more like.
"When, Kelly? When did I flirt with you?"
He had asked to borrow a pen in ninth grade US history, she said.
"That's the definition of flirting."
"Kelly, all it was was asking for a pen. You were with Steve. Steve, who you've been pining over. Remember that?" Dylan forced himself to not yank out chunks of his hair, which would turn his hand into a greasy mess. Worse still, he had both encouraged and enhanced Kelly's ideas, in his old life. "You really gotta get this jealousy thing you have toward Brenda under control, Kelly. Do you really want me? Or do you want the relationship I have with Bren? Because the kind of relationship I have with her is unique to just me and her. It can never be replicated. Ever. I'm never gonna have that with anyone else. So figure out if you want Brandon, or figure out if you want Steve, but leave me out of it. 'Cause sometimes, a pen is just a pen. And if you want to keep the people in your life who you claim are your friends, then start acting like a friend, not a Hollywood PR relationship. I'm not losing my best friends over you. Not this time."
"This time?" Kelly managed to ask through her crocodile tears.
He was reminded precisely of why he had spent so much time avoiding Kelly between seventh grade and sophomore year.
The Kelly he had known in seventh hadn't been anything like this, but this Kelly rang true to the Kelly he had once dated.
The Kelly who decided he had committed some terrible sin by daring to go down to the LAPD to try to retrieve Brenda after Brenda had used her one phone call to dial Brandon.
Dylan had picked up, instead. He had tried to speed off to the LAPD before he was halted by Kelly, who had insisted on going with him and proceeded to spend the ride over judging Brenda.
He'd been a fool to have ever believed he and Kelly could have anything substantial between them.
He'd been the vicious court jester to have cruelly discarded Brenda, for Kelly.
They were from the same world, with similar backgrounds; yet, they had nothing in common. They didn't even have shitty parents in common, for Iris was no Bill Taylor and Jackie Taylor was no Jack McKay.
Kelly was Beverly Hills' fashionably dressed Marilyn Monroe Barbie, who preferred shopping to reading and clubbing to museums.
Dylan had tried to be her James Dean Ken doll. He had attempted in the past to change her, to make Kelly into something she wasn't.
To make her into a girl who would want to go to Joshua Tree with him. Would want to give up a day of shopping to explore the old ruins of a medieval French village. Would want to hang out for hours, doing homework in peaceful silence.
To make her more like Brenda.
But there could only be one Brenda.
Ignoring the blonde, Dylan charged out of the cabin in the manner of a marathon runner to search for Donna and his brunettes.
He came across the newly returned David first, who took off to find Donna before Dylan could finish his wheezed sentence. Next was Val, huddled with Robinson against the damp nip in the air. Robinson went to find David to continue looking for Donna. Val insisted she would cover more ground by separating from Dylan to look for the Walshes.
Dread ravaged him.
Brandon had nearly died in the last Yosemite trip, during the daylight hours.
It wasn't daylight. It was a Friday evening, with Saturday fast approaching.
Twilight, the timeframe the English authoress Ann Radcliffe had once declared the fairy hour, was upon them.
Dylan didn't know where Brenda was, he didn't know where Brandon was, and, until he found them, he didn't know where his sanity was, either.
The scream that shattered the still atmosphere smashed straight into his lungs.
He followed the scream. His legs kicked out behind him to defeat a stallion in a race. Dirt particles and tiny pebbles leapt into the air, beating against his legs, but he kept running.
"Brandon!" yelled a girlish voice. "Brenda! Hang on!"
Adrenaline surged through Dylan, faster than Zeus' lightning bolts. He dodged branches. Jumped over vegetation that jutted out of the rock. Edged away from the cliffs of Yosemite.
The cliffs.
The words of Itero mocked him.
Anteros believes your Brenda has made a half-wish and plans to punish her for it.
Dylan increased to breakneck speed, certain that no airplane could equate his pace.
She will be tossed into a life she once lived.
He could see the shadows rising, forming figures rather than shapes.
Donna, flat on her stomach. Designer sneakers sliding over gravel.
Clutching Brandon's hand.
Who was dangling off the side of a cliff.
If Brenda suffers a fatal wound in this previous life, a wound different than that which may have been afflicted upon her originally, all Brendas across time and the universes are affected.
Affected how?
They cease to exist.
Dylan was thrown back to the night he and Brandon had found Toni, bullet holes permanently scarring her once beautiful figure.
His arms, drenched in her blood.
This was worse.
This was far worse.
Because Brandon held onto something, too.
A hand. The hand of someone below him.
Suspended, in the air, waiting to fall.
Brenda.
Help me, Dylan, murmured her dreamlike voice into his memories.
Which were being invaded.
Fuck, not now. Not now. God, not now. Just wait a second. One fucking second. I'll pull my twins up to safety and then you can come at me.
His triggered brain didn't listen.
K2. Dylan was back on K2.
Boots sunken into the snow. Icicles clinging to his grizzly beard. The tiny velvet box that held Brenda's newly purchased ring tucked away in the pocket of his long johns. Fearing he would lose that ring before he made it off of the mountain, as he had lost her photo. The subzero temperatures not fit for any man, especially one who had no business attempting the dangerous K2.
Crawling, on his knees, reaching out for Wil's hand.
Wilhelm Schneider. The last of his travelling companions, with Ronnie already crushed by the avalanche that had blown away Brenda's photo.
Doting husband. Proud father. Conservation scientist. Linguist. Polyglot. Approaching his twenty-eighth birthday.
"Brandon, don't you dare let go of my hand. Dylan! Oh, thank God. Dylan, help me!"
Donna. Begging him to help her help the twins.
"Brenda! Brenda, I'm gonna pull you up!"
Brandon, trying his damnedest to cling to both Donna's hand and Brenda's.
Wil! Grab my hand, man! I'll pull you up.
It's no use, Dylan. Nature, it is winning.
Nature can win any other time. But not this one. C'mon, Wil. You've got kids. A wife. Pull yourself up, for them. Don't fucking give in to nature.
Tell my family, Ich liebe dich.
Tell them yourself. I can't speak German to save my life. You want me to butcher your mother tongue?
Oh, you Americans and your poor education system.
He watched Wil tumble down, down, way down into the tenebrous abyss below.
Vanished from existence.
Never to be seen again.
"Dylan!" Donna screamed once more.
-x
My attempts at German are abysmal, so Ich liebe dich came primarily from browsing language forums. Hopefully this is the correct form of I love you to one's spouse and children.
I've made a video of Itero, at WISH UPON A DREAM on YT and wishuponamilliondreams on Insta.
As always, thanks a million for the readership, reviews, follows, favourites, alerts, discourse, plot ideas, etc. Stay healthy and safe out there. x