They couldn't get her to open up.
Brandon couldn't. Donna couldn't. Dylan couldn't.
Even Brenda couldn't.
Whatever had happened in the Malone household, Valerie refused to utter a word.
She instead clung to Brenda, which she claimed was primarily due to the fact that Brenda could have perished in the tunnel.
Brenda told Val to lay off the historical dramas.
Dylan wasn't much better himself, sticking close to Brenda in the event that Anteros decided to make her disappear.
He wasn't convinced Anteros hadn't been responsible for Brenda's time in that tunnel.
Nor was he convinced of the innocence Kelly projected.
Samantha and Rush had succeeded in getting their son released when Samantha told the police that she had never seen Harry Wilson in her life and that she would bring the matter before the international press if the LAPD continued to harass her son.
Steve said jail hadn't been as bad as he'd imagined it would be. He'd befriended a few men within the station's walls, and discussed with them whether getting a tattoo on his forearm would impress college chicks.
Dylan wasn't in the least bit surprised.
Donna was more traumatized, jumping every few steps as they walked along the sidewalks. Brenda had begun to routinely take Donna's hand, with Dylan firmly grasping onto Brenda's other one.
Halloween approached, and with it, Dylan's curiosity if Brenda would choose the same ensemble she had before.
Or, more like his subtle hinting for Brenda to choose the same ensemble.
Perhaps not as subtle as he could have been, since he had lifted Brenda's copy of Rebecca off of her bookshelf and said she'd look sexy in a '30s costume.
He had, however, not asked her outright to be Bonnie Parker.
Dylan helped Brenda to decorate the Y for their Halloween party, unwrapping sweets to pop them into her mouth.
"You know what's even sweeter than chocolate?" he asked.
"Your lips," said Brenda through a mouthful of dark chocolate. "Yup, I know."
"Well there's that, but I was thinking more of taking Halloween weekend to go out of town. Take the bike down the coast. What d'ya say?"
"We'd have to get permission, and you know my parents have been wary ever since the tunnel thing," said Brenda.
"I don't blame them," said Dylan. "That tunnel thing had you spouting weird stuff for days."
"How was it weird?" asked Brenda.
"You mean, besides me killing a priest?"
"I still maintain that you did. I mean, not you, but maybe a Past You."
"Okay, then maybe not weird, that priest thing and whole running away from the law thing aside." Dylan hadn't done anything to get the police knocking at his door as they had a number of other times in his old life; nor did he anticipate he would. "Was telling me about that harp locket your way of asking for a harp locket?"
"Depends. Would you get me a harp locket?"
"Maybe," said Dylan. "Might consider it if you'll give me another shower," he added, wiggling his eyebrows. "But this time, with less clothing."
"Patience, young cricket," said Brenda.
"It's grasshopper."
"Whatever. Crickets are better."
"You're comparing insects?"
"Don't you compare insects?"
"Can honestly say I don't. You can protect me from whatever insects decide to house themselves in my shower. Or your shower."
"I'd rather there not be any insects in the shower."
"Then don't bring 'em up," teased Dylan.
Upon release from the hospital following the incident in the tunnel, Brenda had been nervous to part from Dylan.
It had led to her standing in his shower, asking for Dylan to please bring in her bathing suit that she knew she had left from the last time they had gone to the beach so that Dylan could join her.
He didn't need her to ask a second time, racing towards the spot in the living room where Brenda would have dropped it before stepping into the bathroom and stripping his own clothing down to just his boxers.
He held Brenda, the warm steam of the shower spattering upon them as Dylan tried to rock the tunnel out of Brenda's system.
It was the first of what would become many shower embraces between them, and Dylan smirked into Brenda's dampened hair at knowing it had happened much sooner than it had in his past.
"And I'd like to soap you up next time," said Dylan.
"Naughty boy," said Brenda, tapping his arm. "The kids are gonna hear you."
"The kids are too busy watching Brandon go gaga over an Olympic hopeful to pay attention to us."
"He's just impressed with her skating moves and what it means for his class to have Tricia Kinney as a visitor. He's still very much into Donna."
"I could be impressed with your skating moves," said Dylan. "Will you ever show me?"
"We live in LA."
"Your brother literally works in an ice rink."
"I've never skated on polished ice before."
"There's a first for everything."
"I'm gonna use that when you refuse to skate with me."
"You just wanna see me fall on my butt so you can be the one to ice it."
"Maybe," Brenda smiled. Smearing chocolate on Dylan's face, she wiped it off to lick at her finger.
Dylan groaned, watching her. "You're torturing me, woman."
"Aren't you the one who told me I could take all the time I needed to ensure this is what I wanted?" asked Brenda.
"Aren't you the one who said this is what you want?" asked Dylan.
"You're right. I did say that. But I don't think either of us want our first kiss after our breakup to be in the Y, or our first hookup after our breakup to be in the Y. We'd be fired on the spot, considering how loud your moans get."
If Brenda was trying to keep from turning him on, it was not working.
Fuck, thought Dylan, I need to get laid.
"Our first time was in a fancy hotel with a live band playing downstairs," he said. "It's gonna be hard to top that."
"Says the guy who took me to Dana Point."
"Fair enough. I could've kissed you then, you know."
"But you didn't, which means you respect my wishes. And that, honey, is sexy."
"How sexy?" asked Dylan, leaning in with a bite of his lip.
"We're not hooking up at the Y," said Brenda.
"Okay, but I request at least one makeout in the lockers when we're officially back together."
"Maybe," said Brenda. "If you play your cards right."
When Iris returned from a health retreat in the Redwoods that she had talked Nat into going to with her, Dylan left Brenda chatting with Nat to lead a perplexed Iris into the Porsche.
He and Brenda would be shopping for a new car soon, though Brenda hadn't a clue Dylan was purchasing it for himself only as a guise.
It would become Brenda's, whether or not she knew.
"Deep breaths, darling," said Iris, putting her hand on Dylan's back.
"How can I breathe, Mom? I'm a friggin' deadbeat. A deadbeat!"
"I thought you said you and Brenda have been apart for over a decade."
"I thought we had," said Dylan. "She thought we had. I can't explain it, Mom, but I know Brenda had my son. And friggin' Connor Monaghan is going to raise my son with my Bren. Monaghan and Bren are gonna tell my son all about his fake father. Who knows if he'll even know my name?"
"Perhaps this Brenda and that Brenda will integrate," suggested Iris. "Then you will be able to raise your son as your own."
"That's exactly what I anticipate will happen, at some point. But for the time being, that asshole is the one raising my son."
"Is he contemptible to you because he married Brenda?"
"He's contemptible because…he just is, okay?"
"If Aiden is your son," said Iris, "then you have been separated from your family by time."
"And fairies," added Dylan.
"You cannot be a deadbeat whilst you were unaware of the possibility that you had fathered Brenda's child when you accepted the fairies' offer."
"But now I can only see them in my dreams," said Dylan. "I'm stuck here in the '90s, and they're over in the next century."
"Is it a nice century?" asked Iris.
"It ain't perfect," he said. "There's wars. Poverty. The gov still doesn't know frickall of what they're doing. Corporations are getting greedier by the day, especially insurance companies. And there's this thing called social media, which is just achin' for people to get slapped. I'm only on it 'cause Steve set up an account for me and blackmailed me with Madster pics."
"Sounds just the same as when I was growing up, social maedia aside."
"Media," said Dylan. "Like videos, music, and stuff."
"Oh, like that Midnight Special television program your father used to enjoy?"
"Sorta."
"It could certainly be a worse environment for my grandson," said Iris.
"I guess," said Dylan, liking how the term had sounded coming from his mother.
He supposed he would try to be content that, whilst Aiden wouldn't have Iris in his life, he would have his grandmothers Walsh and Beevis.
Along with Brenda's entire family.
And in this life, when Brenda got knocked up, Dylan would be there every step of the way.
Their blending family had incorporated the Malone children, who Samantha had ended up fostering when Jim and Cindy lost their battle for custody.
Where the Walsh's lawyers had failed, the Sanders' lawyers had stepped in.
Suzie and Curtis were at Casa Walsh so often, they may as well have lived with the Walshes.
Steve was thrilled, as the foster arrangement meant Valerie made nightly visits to the mansion in order to help with her siblings' bedtime routines.
"Think something's goin' on between Val and Steve?" asked Dylan, sitting beside Brenda with a large bowl of popcorn whilst Brandon anxiously waited for the commercial to end.
"I think Steve wants something to go on between him and Val," said Brenda. "But pretty sure Val has her eye on David. Didn't you see the way she's been looking at him? Bonnie almost said something to Scott so Scott could hint to David to ask Val out."
"Probably missed it with the way Steve keeps looking at Val."
"Enough to miss the way Kelly keeps looking at him," said Brenda, uttering the name now rarely spoken amongst their group.
Kelly had been none too pleased when Emily's and Brenda's Hello Day duet had received an uproarious ovation from the students crowding the field and a call for an encore that led to the girls jumping around about manic Mondays.
Kelly's irritation may have been due to Donna, Bonnie, and Valerie serving as the backup dancers that Kelly would have been had she not destroyed her relationship with Brenda.
Dylan still hadn't gotten The Bangles' Eternal Flame out of his head, which he was convinced Brenda had put there on purpose to tease him.
After that performance, David said, Scott Scanlon could no longer call himself a virgin.
David then grumbled that he still was.
Didn't need to know that on either account, said Dylan, though he clapped Scott's hand when he saw Scott at the Y following an individual coaching lesson with Petey.
"Shush!" Brandon frenetically waved his hand. "She's on!"
"Skater girl?" Valerie plopped down beside Brandon to steal his popcorn.
"That's future gold medalist to you," said Brandon, tugging his popcorn out of Valerie's fist.
"Looks like someone has a little crush," said Val. "Could it be all those burritos you ate with her?"
"Don't read too much into it, Val," said Brenda. "Brandon flips through girls faster than most people surf the channels."
Brandon tossed a piece of popcorn at her. Brenda caught it in her mouth, chewing happily with a sinister smile.
"Downside is he can't date Kinney," said Dylan. "Her coach would never allow it."
"Don't you ever go home?" asked Brandon, throwing popcorn at Dylan.
"Not if I can help it." Dylan swiftly caught the popcorn in his hand.
More popcorn flung about before Brenda called for a truce and went to get the vacuum.
Dylan caught her around the waist to sink his lips into her neck.
"Now you're torturing me," Brenda moaned, digging her fists into his hair as they stood intertwined on the staircase.
"Say the word and I'm yours," said Dylan.
"Halloween weekend, huh?" asked Brenda.
"There's so much of the state you haven't explored," said Dylan. "Plenty of beaches for us to cover. Mountains for us to trek. Deserts for us to shut out the world. Winter activities up north, or down here in Big Bear. Snowboarding. Skiing. Same things you'd do in Minnesota. There's even a beach we can ride a horse on."
"Oh!" said Brenda. "I almost forgot. Bobby's coming here next week." She leant in closer. "Did I tell you Bobby's always had a thing for Val?"
"Pretty sure I'd remember that one," said Dylan, trying both to control his urges and to pretend he'd only seen Bobby Walsh's appearance in photos. "Guess Sanders might have some competition."
"And/or David," said Brenda. "Bobby's gonna come with us to the Halloween party. You said Bonnie's house is easily accessible for a wheelchair, right?"
"Scott said it is."
"Good. The last party my cousins and I all went to together, Bobby had to be lifted up in his chair and carried into the house. He was humiliated. I'd really like to avoid that."
Dylan remembered that moment all too well, and was irritated to realize he hadn't considered Bobby's carefully disguised feelings during it.
He didn't think the others had, either.
"I didn't know you ride," said Brenda. "Bobby rides, too. Maybe we can take him and Brandon out to those stables over behind the Y."
"What about Val?" asked Dylan.
"Val hates horses," said Brenda. "Hates 'em," she emphasized.
"Any reason?" asked Dylan, taken aback.
"She got bucked off my grandparents' horse when we were nine."
"Ah yeah, that would do it. Brandon rides, then?"
"Not at all," said Brenda with a sly grin. "I just like to torture him."
"Evil," Dylan laughed.
"You love me for it."
"I am always down to torture your brother."
When they learnt Donna also rode at times, Brandon invited Donna to join them.
Thinking he had outsmarted Brenda without realizing he had fallen directly into her matchmaking trap, Brandon rode on the back of Donna's horse as she slowly moved them along.
Dylan had to gallop at a rapid pace to keep up with Brenda, just as he had in the past.
The Western Sycamores lining their gravelly path that would be placed on the list of California's protected trees in the future seemed to gesture to Dylan.
He took the hint.
"Have you ever been kissed while riding on a horse?" asked Dylan. Their horses steadily trotted beside each other under a drizzle of unforecasted rain.
"You know," said Brenda, "I don't think I have."
"You'd know if you have."
"In that case, I haven't."
Dylan leant over his horse to peck Brenda's lips. The peck turned into a kiss. The kiss led to the first full-fledged makeout since the beach for Brenda and their London goodbye for Dylan.
That he knew to be true, anyway.
He still couldn't figure out Boston, which must have resulted in their son.
"Official?" asked Dylan, leaping up on Brenda's horse to sit behind her.
"Official," she said, tilting her head in anticipation of another makeout.
"God, I've missed this," he said, rubbing his nose against hers.
"Can we make a pact?" she asked.
"What kind of pact?"
"A pact that the beach is the last time we'll ever break up," she said. "I don't think I can handle another one of those."
"You're tellin' me," said Dylan, swooping his lips onto hers. "I promise that I, Dylan McKay, will be forever faithful to you, Brenda Walsh."
"And I promise that I, Brenda Walsh, will always love you, Dylan McKay, with my heart and my soul."
"I'm holding you to that," he said before stealing her breath with the taste of his.
Bobby laughed as they returned to meet up with the others. "When's the wedding?" he asked, eyeing Brenda's rumpled hair and Dylan's wrinkled clothes.
"Next week," said Dylan. "You coming?"
"Wouldn't miss it," said Bobby.
"We are not getting married next week," said Brenda.
"Pretty sure you're already married, sis," said Brandon.
"Oh, you're hilarious," she said. "Have you considered stand-up? Nope; that's more my thing."
"He ain't wrong, Bren," said Dylan. "Just need the paper to make it doubly official."
Brenda shook her head and grabbed Donna's arm to pull her aside for a chat Dylan guessed would be about Brandon.
His focus remained on the other Walsh twin.
Brenda Walsh is mine again, thought Dylan. Officially mine, 'til the end of all time. Read 'em and weep, Monaghan, you fucking child stealer.
And you too, Carson; you fucking asshole.
Now, just gotta get Miller a girlfriend to keep his eyes off Bren, 'cause ain't no way he's interfering.
Stick to the football, Miller.
When Dylan showed up at Casa Walsh in a pinstripe three-piece suit complete with a tie and fedora, he tried to hide his dismay that Brenda had come down the stairs in flowing nineteenth century skirts.
"Psyche!" said Brenda. "Got you," she laughed as she un-Velcroed the skirts and revealed her real costume.
Bonnie Parker to his Clyde Barrow, just as Dylan had hoped she would be.
"Not cool," said Dylan, walking over to Brenda for Cindy to snap their picture. "You had me going there. I almost thought we weren't gonna match."
"It came to me while in the tunnel," she said. "I could picture myself dressed up in this. Do you like?"
"Do I ever," he said, bringing Brenda beside him. "Sexiest Bonnie there ever was, sans tragic ending."
"My mother is right there," she warned, unable to control her smile.
Cindy simply smiled at them both, then wished the lovesick teenagers a fun time before joining Samantha and Iris in the kitchen to work out the details for Cindy's potential catering company.
The party went on as it had originally, with the additions of Bobby and Valerie who at one point, danced with each other. Andrea had still declined attending. Brandon still stayed home to pass out candy to trick-or-treaters, though dressed as a character straight out of a Frank Capra screwball comedy, rather than a cheesy vampire with horribly crafted fangs. Donna still showed up in an unfortunate mermaid dress Brenda had to help her maneuver in, the difference being that Donna spent most of the night hanging out with Robinson who Dylan overheard tell Donna that she made a fine mermaid. Kelly still flirted; this time, to a more concerning extent with the added alcohol in her system.
It was Steve and Brenda who got to Kelly before Dylan could figure out where Brenda had disappeared in a different home than the party had been before.
And it was Scott who surprised them all by tossing the perverted asshole to the curb, before he embraced the shaking Bonnie.
"She's wiped," said Steve, carrying the disheveled Kelly out of the bedroom where Brenda had found her. "I know none of us are too fond of her these days, and I'm definitely not after everything with Stacey, but do you mind if I -"
"Go ahead," said Brenda, moving a strand of Kelly's hair away from her face. "I've never seen her so frightened," Brenda murmured.
With everything Dylan knew about Kelly and everything he didn't know about Zosha, he couldn't find it in him to stir the same reaction he had the last time.
But that didn't mean he thought Kelly deserved the attempted attack.
He expected for Valerie to throw out a dig, and turned around to see why she hadn't.
"Val?"
Bobby held onto Valerie as she sunk to the ground, folding into herself.
Brenda called Emilio over to help them raise Val from her kneeling position.
They brought Valerie home, where she stormed into Brandon's arms to weep.
He engulfed her, throwing his bafflement to the others as Dylan explained the best way he could.
But he couldn't explain, for nothing he knew of Val's life from her past told him why she had reacted the way she had.
Dylan asked Brenda if he should leave. Valerie sniffled for him to stay.
They all went up to Brenda's room. She now shared with Val, until the recent construction on Casa Walsh would be completed and the girls could have their own rooms.
Dylan had told Brenda she could move in with him and Nat. Brenda had declined, of course, but Dylan decided it had been worth a shot regardless. Val had said she might end up at Nat's, if she couldn't get used to the curfew she called confining and unnecessary punishment.
Dylan sat on the bed. Brenda found her favored spot on his lap. Dylan rested his chin on her shoulder and intertwined his hands through both of Brenda's over her own lap.
He thought of their son, and buried his face in Brenda's hair to dry up his incoming tears before they began.
Now is not the time, he told himself. They'll think you're crying over Kelly.
Please. I never cried over Kelly. Not ever.
I cried over Bren, too many times to count. Cried over Toni. Cried over Jack's death and Iris' alleged abandonment.
But never over Kelly.
With Bobby's arm around Val's waist and Brandon's hand on her arm, Val told them.
About all the ways the Malone parents had changed since they had moved to Buffalo.
About Victor's chronic depression, and Abby's horrific plan for paying off the medical bills that had accrued as a result.
About the Malones' prostitution ring.
And the men Victor and Abby Malone had allowed into their children's bedrooms since they had determined them to be of age.
Dylan cried for Valerie. For the years she had been silently hurting, unable to tell anyone but David for fear of threatened harm to her siblings.
He kissed away tears of Brenda's own.
And continued on to cry for his son, who he would never know.
But at least Valerie, Brandon, and Steve all would.
There was some comfort to be had in that.
xx
Her anxiety grew with each tick of the clock hand, displayed through a cracked screen created from years of use.
She held Aiden against her breast, hoping that the feel of her child would soothe the fears that consumed her.
But nothing could soothe her.
Their plan had to go off without a single hitch, or Diolún would not make it out alive.
"The hours are slow," said Brenda.
"Indeed," said Lucas, looking up from where he sat repairing a broken leg on Aiden's cradle.
"We will help him escape, won't we?" asked Brenda.
"We will do our utmost," said Lucas. "It is not my desire to see my brother hang for a crime he would n'er commit."
"That reminds me," said Brenda, "will you please fetch for me my purse?"
Lucas gave her a quizzical look, but did as she asked.
"Will you read this to me?" Brenda withdrew the folded, ink-stained letter.
Lucas' perplexity increased.
"It is from your brother," said Brenda. "I asked that he reveal to me the events of that day."
Lucas took the letter, and then howled with laughter.
"It cannot possibly be that entertaining," said Brenda, miffed.
"How to grow a potato," read Lucas. "One, scatter the seeds. Two, and this is imperative, ensure you've the correct amount of water. Three -"
"He did not write out the steps to grow a potato," said Brenda, snatching the letter back from Lucas despite her inability to read a word of it.
"He assuredly did," said Lucas. "Along with a smaller note that says he will not tell you about the priest in writing." Lucas returned to the cradle. "Best that way. They cannot pin you for the information you will learn."
"Nor can I prove Diolún's innocence," said Brenda, blowing a hair out of her eyes in frustration.
Aiden gurgled, calling out for Brenda's finger.
She offered it to him.
"Diolún is protecting you," said Lucas. "As he has always done. As he will always do."
"I am not the one who needs protection."
"Yes, but try telling that to my brother," said Lucas. "He will put you and your son above all else, including himself."
"I do wish he would think of himself a bit more," said Brenda.
"Who?" asked Nuala, setting down her wicker basket of rolled laundry.
Brenda sat Aiden in Lucas' arms to help Nuala with the ironing.
"Diolún," said Brenda as she began to heat the flat iron on the kitchen range.
"Have you a plan?" asked Nuala, flattening damp clothing upon the table.
"I've a plan."
"Lovely. I anticipated as much. One cannot bear the thought of our Diolún remaining in that dreadful place."
"Should the plan succeed, and I have every confidence it will," said Brenda, "it is possible our paths will permanently diverge from Diolún's. That we shall never be together on this land again."
"He will be alive," said Nuala. "He will be free. That is what matters."
"We are in agreement," said Brenda, lifting the heated iron to hand to Nuala.
Nuala wrapped a cloth around its handle and began to iron out the fabric, taking great care to avoid any burning.
Brenda never anticipated she would miss an electric iron, until it no longer existed.
She added it to her growing list of post-nineteenth century inventions that, unbeknownst to her, had made her life easier.
Her list would soon be the size of an ancient philosopher's scroll, one of those unraveled at a banquet attended by history's greatest minds.
Brenda awaited Bransfield, who handed her the wrought iron key he had swiped off of the passing Constable.
Brenda didn't ask how Bransfield had acquired such knowledge. She was reminded of Steve, and wondered if Bransfield would have had a simpler time with stealing the legacy key of West Beverly.
She memorized precisely where Bransfield had said Diolún's transportation would be, and then sat on the bench nearby St. Peter's Market to await the cloak of night.
It felt strange to be afraid in the city she had once known well. She worried that if she were caught helping Diolún, she would never see her son again.
Brenda clutched the chain of her harp locket for courage. She assured herself that Aiden's stay with Nuala would be temporary. Diolún deserved to be with his daughter, just as Brenda had been given the blessing to raise her son.
Even if the only family around them was one unaware of her true identity.
Brenda heard the low-pitched whistle, followed by the pounding of hooves.
Lucas' signal.
She casually got up from the bench and quietly walked to where the open window of the bridewell sat dug into the ground, close to Diolún's cell.
Brenda faked a stomach cramp, bending over to let her skirts drag on the ground. She had enough of a belly left over from her pregnancy for her cramp to appear realistic.
She had one shot to get this right.
Brenda prayed all her years of tossing items at Brandon would pay off as she pitched the key behind her backside, through the window.
"Who's there?" asked the gruff voice down below.
"'Tis only a rat," said Diolún.
Brenda was relieved to know he still had his tongue, for she didn't know which of the ancient torture strategies were still practiced in that time.
Had Diolún been shorted a finger? An ear? A toe? Had they chopped at his heel? Beaten him til he bled out scars that would never heal? Obliterated the kind spirit of her Diolún?
Every torture scene Brenda had ever watched in her historical dramas or read vivid descriptions of in her historical novels inundated her brainwaves.
She thanked the heavens that the bridewell was unlikely to store a machine that, when leveled at fifty, caused excruciating, unendurable pain worse than death itself.
"A rat," scoffed the guard. "I'll feed you to a rat if you mock me, McKay."
"Yes, sir," said Diolún, putting on a pretense of submission.
Brenda slipped away to remove her skirts and change into the trousers she had been provided.
God, it felt good to wear them again.
She had never thought she'd grow weary of dresses, until she was forced to wear one every day.
She fingered the rough fabric as if in a dream. That they were baggy and stained with what may have been sheep dung didn't matter.
They quickened her steps without the telltale whoosh of dragging skirts, and that was what mattered.
If it hadn't been for Aiden, Brenda would have followed in the footsteps of Anne Bonny and become a pirate.
She could picture herself as a pirate, living out her life on the open sea as she may have done had she not turned down an oceanic historical film role that had then gone to the English actress Keira Knightley.
Keira, Brenda was sure, had never been in the situation Brenda had found herself in simply from making a wish.
In the dead of night, with only a sliver of the moon to guide her as the city slumbered, Brenda ran towards the shelter of a White Willow tree.
Into Diolún's awaiting arms.
"How have you escaped without alerting the guard?" she asked, sliding her hands all over his face.
"Never ye mind that," said Diolún breathlessly, his forehead pressed against hers. "Were ye a sportswoman in another lifetime?"
"Perhaps," Brenda smiled. "Come. We haven't much time before your absence is discovered." She took his hand and moved to start running again.
"Wait," said Diolún, spinning her to him. "Shall I finish what we have begun?" he asked, eyeing her lips before shifting his eyes to hers.
"Indeed," said Brenda. "But first, the carriage."
She told him that they would be housed for the night in the tunnel beneath Bransfield's home, a building close to the docks that sat at an acceptable distance from the bridewell so that it was unlikely to be searched.
"We will?" asked Diolún.
"You surely do not expect me to leave before you have safely boarded your ship."
"It is too dangerous," Diolún began.
"As it is for you," said Brenda. "And you still owe me an answer to my query, Potato Lad."
"Lucas read it to you, did he?"
"I would yell at you for that if I were not relieved to know you are beside me."
They darted through the city, their footfall quieted to the point that Diolún whispered they had found their flying machine.
Brenda was a mix of emotions as she accepted food and straw bedding from Bransfield with her profusely expressed gratitude.
"Diolún is blessed to have become acquainted with a man of your gentility," she said with a kiss to Bransfield's cheek.
"On the contrary," said Bransfield as a flush befell his features, "it is I who has been blessed by him."
Brenda hunkered down in the tunnel with Diolún.
"Now?" he asked, turning on his side as he watched Brenda settle beside him.
"First, you have a tale to tell," she said.
Though he released a long, drawn-out sigh, Diolùn consented.
Neither he nor Brenda had been responsible for Ciarán Keating's demise, said Diolún. There had been a few priests, all of fine character, that they could have asked to officiate their wedding. They had made the grave error of choosing Keating.
"He discovered ye were with child," said Diolún, his face lit by the lantern that Brenda had secured in the post upon the dirt wall. She had done so cautiously, worried her plan would quite literally go up in flames if the lantern fell. "He said he could not marry us with the leanbh inside ye. He became agitated, vicious. Ye feared what he would do if he learnt of my Huguenot leanings. Ye asked O'Connell to help us."
"Did he?" breathed Brenda on a whisper of stifled air.
"Ay, that he did. O'Connell and I ran into the cathedral, where we watched as Keating held a knife to you. He told you that our leanbh would be the spawn of evil, that he was saving ye from yer sins."
"But our daughter lives," said Brenda. "I recall laboring with her during the journey. My pains set in as we awaited release from our cholera quarantine."
Diolún didn't know the memory came straight from Brenda Walsham herself, spoken into the mind of Brenda Walsh.
Brenda thought anyone else would have believed themselves to be mentally unstable by that point.
Then again, she had made acquaintance with a fairy and fallen in love with a ghost.
"I should not have let O'Connell intimidate me," said Diolún. "I should have been beside ye, holding yer hand with our daughter as I did for our Aiden."
"Please continue," said Brenda, unwilling to permit Diolún to beat himself up over the mess Jarlath O'Connell had created.
"I lost me head," said Diolún. "I charged at Keating. Shouted threats of murder, which is why I am not as innocent as ye believe. O'Connell pried the knife out of his grasp. I found my footing and rushed over to ye. Keating was too quick. He grabbed ye before I could blink."
"And squeezed his arm around my neck," said Brenda in a low voice.
"Ay," said Diolún. "I still remember it. The discoloration on your face, the paralyzing fear that I would bury both mo shíorghrá and our leanbh. Even being in that cell, facing me own death, cannot compare to that feeling." He stroked Brenda's cheek with his knuckle. "But then -"
"I threw him off of me," said Brenda. "He went flying back through the window. The three of us cleaned up and vowed to never tell."
"O'Connell might have kept his word, gombeen that he is, if he had not been vexed with ye for quarreling with him on his abysmal treatment of Nuala."
O'Connell, Diolún believed, had led the authorities to Seamus Walsham.
"That is why we decided to flee," said Brenda.
"It is. We knew we would never be believed, and I was not about to suffer the loss of ye or our daughter. I did not realize that loss would occur regardless."
"You sweet, wonderful man," said Brenda, cupping his face.
"I have just told ye I helped to cover up a death the authorities believe to be a murder, and ye still think me wonderful?"
"Immensely wonderful." Brenda pushed Diolún's hair behind both of his ears. "You were protecting h - me. As your brother has said you do. As you have done of Aiden and Liam since before they were born."
Brenda straddled Diolún's lap. "Would you mind terribly if I were to kiss you?"
She could feel his smile stretch against her jaw. "I would mind terribly if ye did not," he said. "But I am afraid I cannot take ye to bed. The thought does appeal. I cannot give into it until I am certain I will awaken to ye in my bed every day."
"Very well," said Brenda. "We will leave our garments on."
"Ye appear most fetching in yer trousers," he said.
"You appear most fetching when you are out of yours."
Their faces mashed together. Their lips connected with a heightened fiery intensity, far more intense than Brenda recalled in her relationship with Connor.
With Stuart.
Or, for that matter, with Dylan.
Perhaps that was a result of life on the run.
Or life in the arms of a fucking sensual Irishman whose lips moved to trail along every inch of Brenda's neck and chest, careful to keep his lips above her waistline.
She knew then that Diolún would be carrying her heart in a wooden chest onto his ship the next day, back across the treacherous sea from whence she had come.
And she believed she would never again be able to love anyone the way she had learnt to love Diolún McKay.
-x
Sources: Google + the websites for the 1900s (.org) (.uk,) Cork English Market, IB4UD.
Thanks a million! x