Authors Note: I acknowledge I have no ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210 characters or canon, the rest well yeah that's mine.
Some minor aspects of the original BH Timeline are moved to suit my storyline purposes- though I will keep this to an absolute minimum.
Chapter One: The Anniversary Party
It was weird pulling up into the driveway after having been gone for so many months and after so many changes. If it wasn't my parents' twentieth wedding anniversary I wouldn't be travelling at all but Grandma Walsh along with Grandma Beevis insisted I be here. Even with their adamant belief that this was compulsory attendance for me, I refused to be away from Minnesota longer than twelve hours. This caused me to take a different flight rather than leave with them on the morning one; I had taken the afternoon non-stop flight from Minneapolis and landed at LAX three hours and forty-five minutes later. My return airport shuttle was due to pick me up at ten-thirty that night, and as long as there were no delays I'd be on the red-eye by midnight, and be home to Grandma Walsh's by six-thirty Minnesota time.
Choosing to take the late afternoon flight meant the party was scheduled to start before I could make my surprise appearance, leaving me no other choice but to try and get dolled up in a cubicle at the airport to avoid walking into the formal occasion in jeans. Ten minutes into the rushed airport makeover I gave up concluding that I was fighting a losing battle, deciding instead to just be thankful my ankles were no longer swollen and that my waist only looked like it had a slight midwest winter spread.
Taking a deep breath I exited the taxi and walked the path I hadn't since the day after graduation. That day I had been rushing to pack and exit LA as quickly as possible in a desperate need to start College early with summer courses. It had been my mission since late March to jump-start my tertiary education but only my brothers knew truly why. As I approach the front door I close my eyes and try to centre myself, get in, get out, cause the least amount of disruption and attract as little attention as possible. As I open the door my plan is shot to hell by an uncharacteristically loud Andrea of all people.
"Brenda what are you doing here your parents said you couldn't get off school?" It was a little lie I had told them not wanting to agree to attend and then at the last minute pull out. A possibility that even at eleven this morning I was very much considering taking, even if my Grandparents would be disappointed.
"Hi Andrea it's good to see you." I reach out and hug her, on pulling back I answer her question in the hope she'd fill the other members of the gang in, saving me the effort of repeating myself. "I managed to get a last-minute flight, but unfortunately I can only be here for the party. Mum sounded disappointed when I said I couldn't make it so even with nearly eight hours of flights I thought it best to come along for her and Dad's celebration."
"I'm sure they are going to love seeing you, and Brandon well he has been a little lost without you here. It's clear he worries about you a lot."
I smile. "Speaking of my slightly older Brother where is he?"
"Outside by the dance floor refusing to engage as always." I roll my eyes.
"Let me put my bag upstairs then I'll come outside and see if I can convince him to try and participate a little." She nods and goes to move back to the dining room. "Andrea, don't tell my parents I want to surprise them." She smiles and taps her nose.
Moving upstairs I quickly put my bag in my old room. Thank god Brandon had only been teasing when he phoned and said he was changing it into a games room. Moving into the bathroom I run my hand down my black mid-length satin slip dress. It may be a little dark for the occasion but with its thick straps it hid my required bra and fell in a way that hinted at a good figure without clinging to anything other than my now larger chest. Being November I hoped the colour wouldn't appear to be too morbid.
"You look beautiful." Startled, I grab my heart and look in the mirror to find my twin leaning against his door frame. I give him a nervous look and smooth the dress over my hips, he understands my silent question. "No change at all." I raise one eyebrow as I know that isn't true. "Well if they had seen you six weeks ago that might be a different story, but now you look the same as when you left."
"Thank you." I turn to face him and lean against my old sink. "Andrea?" He nods. "I'm guessing the gang has been informed then."
"I'd assume so. He was standing next to me when she told me. He immediately pushed past her and made to come up himself but I managed to stop him by asking for a twin moment."
"Thank you, I'm not ready for that reunion yet. How is he? Still shaken after the carjacking?"
He sighs and goes to rub his hand through his hair, stopping just in time to prevent the ruining of his casually styled look that probably took half an hour to achieve.
"He pulled a gun on me tonight-" I loudly cut him off in shock.
"What?"
"Relax, I'm fine. I left our present for Mum and Dad at his house. When I went to collect it before the party he didn't appear to be home so I went around back and…" he went a little red but not in anger so he must be embarrassed, "well I guess you can say I broke in." Both my eyebrows lift in surprise. "He heard the noise from the shower and rushed out picking up his gun on the way. He realised it was me when I turned around, but he looked pretty damn serious for a moment there."
I wrap my arms around myself trying to find comfort for both the idea of nearly losing my twin and the current situation with Dylan. "In other words, he's not okay, and…"
Brandon fills in the rest, "and it's not the time to tell him."
I shake my head and rhetorically ask. "Will it ever be?" Brandon reaches out and rubs my upper arm, offering the only assurance that he can. A silent hope that one day the timing would align and his life would settle down enough. Turning back around I check my lipstick one last time. "We should go down there, I have little time here as it is." As I turn back he raises his hand indicating for me to stop.
"First, how is he? Still madly in love?"
I know my face lights up, I can see my cheeks rise into the edges of my vision. "I have no words, honestly every day I fall a little more. I didn't even know that I could feel this way."
"Well on my visit he made it obvious that the feeling is mutual." He then held out his arm. "Shall we?"
Linking arms we made our way downstairs and then out to the backyard, bypassing everyone else in favour of heading straight to the people of the hour.
"Mum, Dad presenting- well my better half seems inappropriate, just because I'm better at most things," I elbow him in the stomach, "aww I think by that reaction it's clear you are my more aggressive half." He jumps back before the second elbow lands.
"Brenda, what are you doing here? We thought you couldn't make it." My Mother is launching herself at me as she speaks followed by my Father. Somewhere along the way, Brandon is pulled into the fold. After a minute we are interrupted.
"Is this a private celebration or can I get in on the Brenda sandwich as well?" My parents release me and I smile at Steve then reach out and hug him. He gently picks me up and swings me a little. This guy I have missed.
He and Brandon after the park that day, and the weeks, and months following became my rocks. Until that point, Steve hadn't been a close friend, a member of the gang but not a person I could have a deep and meaningful conversation with. When I walked in in tears that day and found both he and Brandon on the couch they insisted on knowing everything. After hearing about the summer, the nearly eight months of lies, of them hiding it, he had felt betrayed by Kelly. She lost his blind support then believing that after all his mistakes and errors she had known she could have been honest with him. He may not have liked the cheating on me by my boyfriend and best friend or the lying to me but I think he could have forgiven that if she had not kept him in the dark.
He especially felt manipulated by her playing off all their sympathies pretending she had innocently started dating him only following the ending of the relationship, essentially casting me in the role of being selfish in all their eyes. After hearing about my discovery in the park all the betrayal got too much and she lost her perfect woman status in his eyes. Luckily it was not transferred to me. No, instead I gained a much warmer title sister and found another brother, one who was a little wackier than my blood one.
"I've missed you."
"You saw Brandon and I six weeks ago. I mean I know I'm awesome but woman you can't be this clingy." He then whispers in my ear. "What will your new man think?" He eventually stops making me his rag doll and puts me down.
The gang gradually moved over, and after hugging David, Donna and even Kelly hello, I was faced with my ex.
He gives me his sexy smile. "You are a sight for sore eyes."
With no malice in my tone, I smile and respond, "Knowing you I am sure you say that to all the women." He leans in to hug me and then I feel him breathe me in. A second later he whispers.
"Move back?"
I released him. "That answer is still the same as the last time you asked and the time before." Dylan had started calling me at the end of Summer. The first time was when I had been on my way to my first and last party on campus and had to return to my dorm room as I had forgotten to grab a jacket that was long enough to give me protection from questioning eyes. He had been in France at the time, fifteen minutes into our conversation he for the first time asked me to move back.
When he called less than two weeks later at a loose end, seeking a sympathetic ear after blowing off the first registration day at CU, he had asked again. Each phone call since had the same question mixed in at least twice throughout the conversation. Sometimes he'd find an appropriate segue to the question while other times it would burst out of nowhere. My answer has always remained the same. No, you are only asking because you are a little lost. It was the truth.
Steve and Brandon had continued to fill me in on the on-off relationship with Kelly. From the start, they had been problematic but that was because of the loss of his Father and her not knowing how to support him through that. Then came her diet pill abuse and then her anger over feeling undervalued. By the time I got on that plane, they had finally had their first two weeks in their relationship drama-free, and that was mainly due to the rallying behind Donna we had all made. Though Kelly's remark about his Trust fund and his subsequent anger had reset the clock the day before I boarded the plane.
With me out of the equation and them off in Europe it was supposed to get better. Give Dylan peace after losing his father in such a horrific and trauma-inducing way. According to reports and inferences from Dylan himself, they had only lasted a few weeks travelling together before they were at each other's throats and then decided to part company. They both travelled separately and had returned to LA potentially broken up. However, that was a little unclear from the lack of anyone calling an end at the time. Since starting at CU they have tried again and again and again. Each time lasted a couple of weeks or sometimes only a few hours before one was back storming off. Steve said they never officially ended it, rather one would just leave after the other had made a horrible remark.
Steve had started a betting pool at one stage on the time between the now well-known blow-ups. However, when John Sears heard of it he had started to influence the odds in favour of getting cuts of the winnings. He began to purposely flirt with Kelly publicly with her reciprocating, which created even more instability for the pair. By the time my honorary brother informed me of this betting pool and John's game, it had come to an end. That information did not however save Steve from a hormonal ear lashing for his role in creating more drama for Dylan.
"Well the answer may be the same but what's the question?" Kelly's snide tone was easy to spot.
Dylan, not taking his eyes from me, went to answer but I cut him off. Tonight was already emotional enough for me being away from Minnesota. I didn't want the Senior Year drama on top of that. "Dylan keeps asking me if the weather in Minnesota still sucks. I've told him repeatedly to stop bad-mouthing my home State." He understood what I was doing but in typical Dylan fashion couldn't just roll with it.
"I just think being here for so long your blood would have thinned out from the California sun, and well I'd hate for you to get frostbite from staying in a crappy climate." Subtle.
I laughingly replied, "Oh it can get pretty chilly here in California as well…" Case in point the last four months before I moved or the three months before that where he got to pretty much date us both. The worst Minnesota winter would still be warmer than most of Senior Year. "I mean Big Bear can get pretty cold."
Thankfully my Dad interrupted and changed the subject, though he could have picked a better one. "Honey, how long are you staying? Do we at least have a few days before you need to return to school?"
I look at my watch and then both my parents. "You have me for another two hours and fifteen minutes then I turn into a pumpkin. I'm on the midnight flight back to Minnesota."
"What, you can't be serious?" "Sweetheart, you can't extend your stay at least till tomorrow night?"
I ignore Dylan and instead respond to my Mother. "Sorry, Mum it was a struggle to even come here for this length of time but it's Daddy and your big celebration so I couldn't miss it."
"That's a shame Sweetheart but your Father and I understand how important school is. Jim, we should move up the speeches so Brenda can be here for them." With that, they both run off to talk to the MC.
"Two hours, really?" Kelly huffs out at Dylan's question. Steve noticed my unwillingness to engage steps in.
"Well if I only have my little sister for two hours then we need to start dancing now." As he pulls me away to the dance floor I proclaim.
"My birthday is in October, yours is in May, I'm like seven months older."
As he spins me around he laughs, "Yeah but you are littler than me."
My dance with Steve is then interrupted by my Dad claiming the next. My Grandpa, and then Brandon followed. The latter realising his twin was being monopolised and the only way to claim his allotment of time was to come and sway with me- we won't call that dancing. Dylan finally reaching the end of his patience decides at that point to cut in before we could start our second sway song.
"Jones mind if I have the next one?" Brandon looks at me. I squeeze his shoulder and then release him, giving my silent permission. He steps back and Dylan takes over.
Immediately I snapped at him. "Thanks for before, I've enjoyed spending the last half hour being death-starred by Kelly."
He chuckles, "It's her natural expression."
I sigh and try to appeal to his better judgment. "Dylan we were okay before I left we could be civil, I'd like for that to remain between her and me. So whatever you are doing tonight, playing at, it is not helping that be maintained."
"Whatever I'm doing? I haven't seen you for six months and you are giving me two hours that's it. Wait, it's less than two hours as it's shared amongst everyone. I'm not playing. I thought I had made that clear." He shakes his head then changes strategies taking on a pleading tone. "Secretly change your flight or I'll buy you a new one, first class for any time tomorrow. Come back to my place, and no not for that. I just want to be in your presence for a while." He leans down and breathes in my hair. "I've missed you."
"Miss me? Dylan, we talk at least twice a month on the phone and that's not even including the random notes you send me." I refuse to label them love letters.
"They aren't random, they're poems, they remind me of you."
"Yeah until you remember you have a girlfriend-"
"We broke up the night of the carjacking. She wants to see other people."
"And what do you want?"
"The same thing I've wanted since the summer for you to move back."
"Why did your ego miss having us fight over you? Or do you want to relive the fun times when after two years of being in a relationship with me you decided to disrespect me and date us both because you couldn't decide, like I had to earn you? Or is it that you want to have another torrid affair as the last worked out so well for you? Though if that's the aim you'll have to find another girl I have enough self-respect to never play the part of the other woman." I go to pull away, and he holds me tighter.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I promised to not push. Since I called from France you have been very clear, repeatedly telling me you only want to be friends. I promised to respect that wish even if I hate it."
"Well, you've made a lot of choices I've hated as well." He's quiet for a while, as the song changes I go to drop my hands and step away.
"One more, please?" I move back into position.
After a few seconds, I finally raised what happened this afternoon. "You pulled a gun on Brandon? You own a gun?"
"He told you?"
"Dylan, my brother and I don't keep secrets from one another."
"Or from Steve." I give him the please don't start this again look. Since seeing the closeness of Steve and I at his Dad's wake he had repeatedly brought it up. It didn't help that Steve was pissed at him since the park. Their bickering continued until I left but at least the angry heat of it had dissipated after ditch day and when Steve finally understood my intentions for leaving. "I didn't know it was Brandon. I thought someone was breaking in. I got the gun to feel safe."
"Well, let's ignore the paradox of that statement. Have you spoken to someone since the carjacking? I know you haven't returned my phone call since it happened but have you spoken to anyone about it?"
"I'm fine."
"Yeah, buying and holding a gun to my brother less than eight days since your carjacking is not fine. I'm going to assume your fine is like the fine I was back after The Peach Pit robbery. You encouraged me to talk to someone. Why can't you do the same?"
"Bren I'm fine." I give him a stern look.
"Dylan, do you think holding a gun on my brother, your brother is fine?" He sighs.
"No."
"Then?"
He finally accepts the truth of the situation. "I'll talk to Ben to see if there is someone at the community centre I can speak to."
"And the gun?" There is no way I want that in his home, not after Scott.
"I'll get rid of it." He holds me closer, and nearly a minute later he asks into my hair, "Move back?"
"No, you are only asking because you are a little lost. It will get better." He had made his choice and it wasn't me. Being my version of quicksand I refuse to be sucked back in and believe that these requests were anything but his cry for a return to a simpler time when life wasn't so hard for him. Hilariously, it was something that I'd never be able to offer him again.
"Have you thought that maybe I'm a little lost because you aren't here?"
"Yeah, that's not a compelling argument."
He seems surprised. The man seriously needed to work on his woo if he thought that was romantic. "Why not?"
"Dylan I'd like to be more than someone's problem solver."
From his tone, I can tell he is frustrated, "That's not what I'm saying." He leans back and looks me in the eyes, "You haven't forgiven me for that summer, the lies, the dating, the impulsive choice that night, for January-"
"There is nothing to forgive for January. You left that ranch- well I can do without the retelling of the Mrs Robinson seduction attempt any way thank goodness you left when she made a move. Though it did lead to us having a fun night here laughing and watching movies."
"That's not the part that requires forgiveness."
"And neither do we for getting carried away." would never ask him to apologise for what happened that night. It meant… means everything to me, but that is not a conversation I want to have now. I step back. "I think three songs officially means you are a bad sharer."
"When it comes to you always." I looked to the makeshift stage to avoid his eyes, the illusion of love dancing in them was not something I could take.
"It looks like they are getting ready for speeches soon. I should…" pointing in the direction of my family.
He runs his hand through his hair, "will I see you after?"
"Sure I'll come over and catch up with the gang before I leave."
I then walk over to Grandma Walsh who wraps her arm around my shoulder and whispers, "Even at six weeks old Arthur Jack McKay looks a lot like his father."
I wrap my arm around her waist, "yeah Art definitely got his looks from Dylan." I look at my watch, "I might disappear quickly and call Bobby to make sure he's doing okay."
"Hurry speeches will begin in a few minutes."
By the time I returned outside the champagne for the speeches was being handed out. The formalities of toasts, speeches, the slide show, cake cutting, and first dance, followed by Brandon and I stealing our parents for the second meant that I had only enough time to spend a few minutes with my parents before my brothers were able to sneak me out avoiding any more drama.
I never did get to go and catch up with the gang or spend any more time with Art's dad.