He expected they would create a whole new meaning of the phrase burning rubber, the way Steve skidded over the road.
He kept his eyes peeled for Val's car, which zipped so far up ahead that she may as well have been a superstar fleeing from paparazzi.
Agreeing for Steve to drive had been a horrendous decision, but as Steve had pointed out, they didn't have many options.
Dylan edged near catatonia. David varied between crying over Valerie whilst claiming icicles had embedded themselves in his eye, worrying that Val would crash, anger at Val for refusing to let him drive her over, and fear that Val would never speak to him again.
In-between, David and Steve tried unsuccessfully to assure Dylan that no, Brenda slipping hadn't worsened her head injury and yes, the whole situation would turn out just fine with both Dylan's girl and his child.
"Chicks always say they'll never talk to you again," said Steve. "Then you're hooking up in the closet at your third cousin's wedding while your father bangs the bride."
David stared at Steve.
"Point is," continued Steve, "Val's mad at you now, but she'll get over it."
"Would've been nice if you'd given me more context," said David. "Like the fact that Val was lying to protect Bren."
"Protect Bren?" asked Dylan in a barely audible voice. "Protect her from what? From me? You think," he gagged on his own air, "you think Bren needs to be protected from me?"
"You want to know what I think?" asked David. "You really want to know what I think?" His decibel increased.
"Yeah, Silver," said Dylan, gripping his seatbelt. "Why don't you tell us what you think?"
"Fine, you asked for it," said David. "I think the woman I love is pissed as hell at me for unknowingly helping you to expose her lie that probably would've never happened if you hadn't decided to fuck around with Kelly's and Brenda's lives, again. Why don't you grow the fuck up, McKay? Pick one or none and stick with it. This isn't high school. You don't get to jump around from Brenda to my sister and back again whenever you get bored."
"You're a fine one to talk about jumping around," said Dylan. "Tell me why you and Donna broke up, again?"
"Hey now," said Steve. "We're all on edge and worried about Bren and the little McKay and stinging over Val cussing us out and are probably starving; I mean, I sure as shit am -"
"Oh sure, you leave your knocked-up girlfriend behind to run after your ex, and I'm the bad guy," snarled David.
"I didn't know she was pregnant," said Dylan.
Tears clawed at the back of his throat. He couldn't let them flow. It would be admitting defeat. He would not admit defeat.
Brenda and his child hadn't died on the train.
They wouldn't die from a fucking fall.
"Like that's supposed to make it better?" snapped David. "You come back after three years, make it your mission to get Kelly torn between you and Matt, and the second you hear Bren's in trouble, you go running again. If you're so in love with Brenda, why the fuck did you leave her?"
Dylan knew everything David yelled was true. He knew how much of an asshole he had been. How much he had hurt Brenda. How much he had hurt Kelly.
How much he had hurt Brandon.
How much he had tried to hurt Matt, though he didn't give a flying fuck about Matt.
Fear and anger created the retort nonetheless.
"If you're so in love with Val, why the fuck did you make her think she's too dark for you!" Dylan yelled back.
"Why did you cheat on Brenda to begin with!"
"Why did you cheat on Donna!"
"Why did you think it was perfectly fine to go after the woman Brandon was going to marry!"
"Why did you -"
"Enough!" shouted Steve. "I swear, if you two make me sound like my fucking uncle Irv and make me say I'm gonna turn this car around, I will push you both into a snowplow."
"You better not turn this car around," said Dylan.
"Then you two better kiss and make up," said Steve.
"Fat chance of that," snorted David.
"I'd sooner kiss a snowplow," said Dylan.
"That can be arranged," said Steve.
Dylan glanced in the rearview mirror.
"I'm not taking back anything I said," said David as he met Dylan's gaze.
"You shouldn't," said Dylan. "You're right. On all of it."
"Yeah," said David. "So are you," he admitted.
"Now that we've established you both suck and I'm the best guy in this car, does anyone see Val's?" asked Steve.
"You lost Val's car?" David panicked and immediately began searching the side of the road.
"Why did you make Val think she's too dark for you?" asked Dylan in a softer, genuine inquiry.
"She shut me out," said David. "I get why, she'd gone through so much shit at the time, but there's only so long you can try to bulldoze a bulwark before your back gets sliced by the rockslide."
"So what changed?" asked Dylan.
"She moved away and I've been missing her every day since." David fiddled with his seatbelt. "Why did you cheat on Bren?" he asked.
"If I had a nickel for every time I've asked myself that same question, I could finance the solution for world hunger," said Dylan. "I thought it was the easy way out."
"Out of what?"
"The Shakespeare feelings I shouldn't've had at seventeen. Scratch that. Even Shakespeare couldn't've done them justice."
"And was it?"
"No. It made everything way more fucking difficult and complicated than it already was. I used to think it was the worst decision of my life."
"It isn't?"
Leaving a pregnant Brenda to board the killer train without him had become the worst decision of Dylan's life.
"Found her," announced Steve. "She's turning the corner. I think we're nearly there."
"Thank God." David thrust his back against the seat. "That's one reason we broke up."
"What is?" asked Dylan.
"Val always seems to have a death wish. And I can't stand around, waiting to see if her death wish comes true. Not after what happened to Scott. What nearly happened to my mom."
Dylan blanched. His muscles contracted. The sleeves of his coat became a vice around his arms.
"Shit," said David. "I wasn't thinking."
"We're here," said Steve.
Dylan didn't wait for Steve to park before jumping out of the car.
His ears hammered. His throat threatened to climb out of his mouth. His fogged vision danced around from person to person.
His relief lasted for the briefest of moments when he heard Valerie shouting out to Brandon.
He followed their voices and came face-to-face with the man he didn't want to see.
"Where is she?" asked Dylan. "Labor -" he hacked out a cough, "labor and delivery?"
Please God. If you're up there, I know you and I aren't on the best of terms and probably never will be if I'm honest, but do not let Bren be in labor right now. Please. I'm begging you. Don't take my girl, or our kid.
Brandon swung his alarm to Val.
"The jig is up," she said. "He knows. And, just so you know, I'm never speaking to your friends Gold or Scours ever again. They can both take a dive in the River Styx, for all I care."
Dylan was surprised to not have himself included on that list, but figured he would be added later.
"What happened?" asked Brandon, setting his hands on Valerie's arms. "I thought you had a date tonight."
"I did have a date," said Val. "And now the tosser will be lucky to ever get close to me again."
Tosser.
Brenda had once labelled her RADA instructor a tosser. It had been the first Dylan had heard of the word, which Mina explained to him during Brenda's tangent.
Dylan wondered if he should turn his prayer towards Mina, Shane, and Zahur, instead.
God, I hope they're watching over Bren right now.
"Labor and delivery?" he repeated with greater force.
"She's not in labor," said Brandon.
The elephantine boulder lifted partially off of Dylan's chest.
Partially.
"She - she didn't lose - lose -" he stammered.
"They're observing her right now," said Brandon. "She had some spotting and back pain. We've been told that's normal after a fall, but she's in for at least another four hours of observation."
"And the baby?" asked Dylan. "My - my baby?"
"Brenda's child is still safely tucked away in her, as far as I'm aware," said Brandon. "I'm her emergency contact and Power of Attorney. Should anything happen, I'll be the first to know."
"Will you tell me?" asked Dylan.
Brandon scrutinized Dylan for longer than felt comfortable before he gave a slow, almost tortoise-like nod. "I'll tell you."
"Can I," Dylan cleared his throat from the sack of tortilla chips that had ripped open in it, "can I see her?"
"It's after hours," said Brandon. "Only spouses, support persons, or immediate family."
"Then tell them Bren's my wife."
"It doesn't work like that."
"Then get a damn priest here and I'll marry her on the spot."
"You will not," said Val. "Bren's not getting married in a hospital on my watch."
Brenda wouldn't be marrying him, period; not when she hadn't let him hold her in over a week.
"There must be some way I can get in there to see her," said Dylan. "Can't you tell them I'm family? Her fiancé? I don't know; your cousin? Something?"
Brandon's lip curled. "Are you family?" he asked.
"Don't even, Walsh. Not after what you've done."
"And what did I do?" asked Brandon. "Put my sister first, the way I never did before? Protect her and my niece or nephew from your churlish games? What, you think I'm gonna apologize for that?"
"Outside," Dylan growled. "Now."
"I'll check on Bren," said Val. "Keep her company while you two get checked into the zoo."
"Tell her I'll be in shortly," said Dylan. "I'll buy my way in, if I have to."
"Of course you will," said Brandon.
"What the fuck is your problem?" Dylan lashed out when they had moved down the sidewalk after advising David and Steve to head inside.
"You know what my problem is," said Brandon. "You don't need me to spell it out for you."
"How much groveling did you want me to do before you decided you'd tell me that Bren's having my kid? Or were you ever gonna tell me?"
"You know how I found out my twin was pregnant?" asked Brandon. "We were in the hospital, in Kempsey. Bren had gone for more tests while I finished up an assignment. She came in bawling, begging me to help her hold onto her child that she was certain she wouldn't be able to carry. She didn't know if she'd known about the pregnancy before the crash. I vowed to her that I'd take care of both of them."
The boulder had become an iceberg.
"You still could've -" Dylan started.
"Told you? For all I knew, Bren had told you and you'd walked out on her."
"That's not what -"
"It's only when you called that I realized you didn't have a clue."
"Then why didn't you -"
"Because you know what else happened that day? Right before Bren told me? I received a lovely little message telling me that the father of her child had told another woman - my ex-fiancée! - that he had come back for her. That he missed her," Brandon mocked.
"Who sent you -"
"And what else do I find out right before you show up? Why, that you and Bren broke up two years ago! So clearly, her child can't possibly be yours, can it?"
"You already know I lied. Bren is having my baby."
"Do you really think I wanted my niece or nephew to go through life, waiting for your lies or for you to leave on an impulse after an argument with their mother? For them to think you left because of them?"
"You really think the worst of me, don't you?" Dylan shrank back, the wounded hiker to Brandon's enraged grizzly bear that had only become enraged when the hiker had thrown stones at it. "Nothing I do is gonna change that, is it? My actions, my words will always taint it all?"
"Au contraire," said Brandon. "I've seen the way Bren's been improving since you started taking care of her. I've seen you do exactly what you said you would do. I've seen the slow return of that guy I used to know, the one who would've never cheated on my sister because he was so madly in love with her that he'd come over for dinner every night and stand up to my father for her."
"Why didn't you say anything then?" asked Dylan.
"Because you watched your dad murdered in front of your eyes," said Brandon. "Kel ended up on the fucking bathroom floor, for Caplan's sake. So what do I do instead? I pick your feelings over my twin's. There was no way in hell I was going to do that again, not while Bren's already struggling enough. Not while she was terrified she couldn't hold onto her baby."
Dylan fell back against the wall.
"Were you ever gonna tell me?" he asked again in a voice tinier than a small child's. "Was - was she?"
"She doesn't know," said Brandon.
The iceberg melted.
"She doesn't know," said Dylan.
"She doesn't," Brandon reconfirmed.
"Why doesn't she?"
"Why don't you ask her yourself?"
"Then are we family?" asked Dylan.
"No," said Brandon. "But the hospital doesn't need to know that."
"So you were gonna tell me."
"Eventually. If she asked."
Dylan hesitated. "Could we be family?"
"My sister's having your kid," said Brandon. "We're kinda stuck together. I'm not gonna say there's a chance, but I'm not gonna say there isn't one, either."
Dylan hated himself for how egregious he had permitted the situations to become with both of his twins.
"Is this the reason you gave us the curfew?" he asked. "So I wouldn't find out about the baby?"
"I needed to see if you could handle the days before letting you handle the nights. Bren does take her prenatals at six-thirty on the nose, along with her whole regimen. She has dinner at precisely seven-fifteen, after which she withdraws to the sofa to read, color, or watch TV until she goes to bed at ten. At midnight, she wakes up for a snack, usually something chocolate - although lately, she's been craving pie."
"What kind of pie?"
Peach pie, his favorite.
Smart kid, thought Dylan.
"Every morning at no later than two o'clock, her screams echo through the apartment. By three-thirty, we manage to calm her enough to get her back to sleep. At six, she's up for the day. At seven, we hit the road for occupational therapy. She's on a routine, Dylan, which means we are too. Last night, she started crying in her sleep over whether she would need to put her baby up for adoption."
Oh hell to the no.
"What? Our baby is not going to be raised by anyone but us." Uncaring of propriety, Dylan stomped his foot on the sidewalk.
Then ignored the pain that shot through his toe.
"She doesn't want adoption," said Brandon. "She's just scared she'll fail the baby if she keeps screaming."
"I'm all in, Brandon. All of it. Everything. The regimen. The screams. The intermittent sleep. Escorting Bren to every appointment, not just memory training. Either she and I get our own place or I move in to yours, because I'm not missing out on another second of our child's development and I'm not letting her scream without me beside her to hoist her fears."
"See what Bren wants," said Brandon. "Val and I have already started checking to see if the three of us can move somewhere that isn't so close to the train station. I'll go with whatever Bren decides."
"I'm sorry I've been such an ass, Brandon. I really am trying to be the best version I can be. A man your sister can love. A man I can be proud of."
"You aren't the only one who was an ass," said Brandon. "I shouldn't've dated your ex."
"I shouldn't've dated her to begin with, and I really shouldn't've gone after her while she was dating you. She's all yours."
"No, she isn't. She isn't either of ours. She's Matt Dueling's."
"Durning."
"Whatever."
In spite of himself, Dylan began to laugh. "Yeah. That's how I feel about him, too. He's a nice guy, but he's boring as hell. And, accidental or otherwise, tries way too hard to be you. A severely watered-down version of you." Dylan scraped his hand through his hair. "Y'know, if you're missing Kelly, you can call her."
"She has a phone," said Brandon. "She has my number. If I mean anything to her, she can call me. I have a sister to take care of."
"Co-take care of," said Dylan. He puffed out a breath that bounced around in the gelid night air. "When did Steve become the best one of all of us?"
"Probably when I cheated on Kelly."
"Steve cheated on Celeste," Dylan pointed out.
"What do you think Celeste is up to these days?"
"Thanking her lucky stars she isn't married to a stalker."
"Huh?"
"I'll tell you later. I've spent way too long out here."
Brandon said he would tell the hospital.
Dylan thanked him.
Valerie frowned upon their return. "Highly disappointed neither of you has a black eye," she said.
"Black eyes are for chumps," said Brandon.
"Besides," said Dylan, "I gotta set an example for my kid."
"I'll give Silver a black eye, if you want," said Steve.
"I'll give you a black eye right back," said David.
Valerie rolled her eyes and walked away from both without uttering a sound.
"She really does hate me," David lamented.
"They always say that," said Brandon.
Dylan stood in the doorway. His eyes combed over the beds to seek out Brenda's.
He spotted her from the glimpse of her bejeweled headband behind a partially drawn curtain, and then heard her sniffles.
Dylan knocked about the items on a medical trolley in his haste to get to Brenda's side, startling a nurse who appeared barely older than David.
"Bren."
"Dylan."
She rolled over to face him. Her tears set off his own.
"I'm so scared, Dylan," she said. "I'm sorry. I know you don't like to touch me, but could you," she gulped, "could you -" She held her arms out, unable to finish her sentence.
He scooped her up in his arms.
"You think I don't like to touch you?" he asked, perplexed.
"You always have one hand sticking into your pocket and the other one sticking out."
He tilted her chin up to look at him.
"You think that means I don't like to touch you? Oh, Bren." He brushed her hair away from her face. "May I kiss your head?"
She allowed him to do so.
"I do that because I don't want to frighten you by over-touching you," he said against her hair. "I will hold you whenever and wherever you want." He knelt beside her. "May I hold your hand?"
Brenda extended her hand.
"And your other hand?"
Dylan grasped both of her hands in his.
"I'm going to plant a kiss to the indent where your thumbs meet," he said. "Would that be okay?"
At her approval, he dove in.
"Now your knuckles," he said.
She permitted him to kiss her hands everywhere he asked.
He didn't dare try elsewhere. For the time being, receiving access to her hands was more than enough.
"May I; no, forget it, it'll be too weird," he said.
"Ask it," she urged.
"May I lay my head on your stomach?" he asked.
The smile Brenda gave him was the one he loved, the one that seemed to have been comprised of the universe handpicking the stars to place them all between his girl's lips.
She guided his face into her abdomen. His hands snaked around her waist in familiar routine.
His love held in his arms and their child against his cheek.
He knew few things better than that.
"The father's a tosser from a one-night stand," said Brenda, combing her fingers through Dylan's hair and letting the strands fall where they may. "I wish he were more like you."
"He is a tosser," said Dylan, voice muffled against the curve of their child. Brenda had the smallest swell, but it was a swell nevertheless, hinting that their complicated love had created something marvellous that would be in their lives forevermore.
Dylan hoped he would have noticed and questioned her curve, eventually.
"He's a giant tosser," he said. "He can be downright awful. Cruel, even. Rude. God, is he a rude twat, especially when his temper kicks up or he's had too much to drink. Incoming. He never realizes what he has until he's flat on his ass, scraping at the ground, crying out for the life he gave up on. He's hurt you more times than should have been allowed, but he's more dimensional than all those things make him seem. And it wasn't a one-night stand. It was a multi-night stand. Multi-day, too. A loving, committed relationship with a shit ton of history that could have remained intact, could've been expanded, if he didn't go and fuck it all up."
"That's nice to know," said Brenda.
Dylan angled his eyes towards hers. "What if you know him?" he asked. "What if you - what if you might even like him?"
"Is it David?" she asked.
Who needed lungs or a heart, anyway?
"Do you want it to be David?" he gasped out.
"I don't care one way or the other," she said. "But Val would be hurt, and I'd hate doing that to her." Brenda winced.
"What?" Dylan asked, anxiety drilling at his chest. "Is it the baby?"
"No, just; please tell me it isn't Steve."
"It's not Steve," he said, lips curving upward.
"Good," said Brenda. "I don't need to raise two kids."
"Two's something to think about," he said. "Or maybe three or more."
"One pregnancy at a time," she said. "Are you sure I know him?"
"One hundred and ninety percent sure."
"Then I'm out of options," she said. "I don't know many men - or people - and I already know he isn't you."
Dylan fully looked at her. "What makes you think he isn't me?"
"You said it yourself," she said, absentmindedly drawing her hand across her stomach. Dylan watched her movement and wondered if she could feel their child under her hand. "You don't have any kids. If you were my child's father, you would have realized when Val told you about the pregnancy. And I don't think you would have kept that from me, or denied your involvement."
He'd been a fucking fool.
Of course. Brenda thought he'd known all along.
Because he told her that he had.
And telling her otherwise would dismantle two of her most crucial support systems in a time when Brenda needed all the support she could get.
"When did I say I don't have kids?" he asked, attempting to pinpoint the exact moment.
"When you introduced me to Andrea and I thought Hannah was yours. You said you didn't have any kids. Up 'til that point, I almost thought you were the father."
Dylan couldn't decide whether to be proud of Brenda for starting to gain back her memory skills, or to be vexed that he had unwittingly contributed to the lie.
"Can you feel the baby?" he asked.
"Sometimes," she said. "Kick counts don't start until the third trimester, so with the spotting and the pain, I wasn't taking a chance."
He asked how far along she was in the pregnancy.
Twenty weeks.
He counted back.
Seventeen. He'd found her at seventeen.
A bubbling laugh threatened to burst forth.
He'd fucked up royally at seventeen, and now he'd became part of his child's life at seventeen weeks.
He'd missed sixteen weeks, but he would be there for far more.
He'd be there for the rest of the pregnancy, and lightyears beyond that.
He'd be there until Brenda and their child put his ass in the grave.
Or children, if he kept fighting for his girl.
"I didn't put two and two together," said Dylan. "Math isn't my strongest suit."
"Is it mine?" asked Brenda.
"You were great in practically every subject," he said. "Straight-A student before we started dating. Longer. I dabbled more in the D's and F's, mainly because I thought school was a waste of time when I'd already learnt everything I needed to from books and didn't want to put in the effort. Until I met you and learnt some people take a study date in the literal sense."
"We dated?" she asked.
"On and off."
"So we're more than family."
"Family is just one piece of what we are," said Dylan. "One piece in a plethora of others, all culminating in the incredible chronicle of us."
One of Brenda's hands slipped out of his to rest along his cheek.
"You're the tosser?"
"I'm the tosser," Dylan confirmed, pressing his cheek into her touch. "I did tell you I'm capable of hurting you."
Brenda's eyes softened to the point he hadn't expected. "You're also capable of consoling me," she said. "More than even Brandon can."
"I'd like to console you every night. If you'll let me."
"Did you ask Bran?"
"He said it's your decision."
Brenda mulled it over. Dylan thought he would flatline whilst he waited.
"Can we make sure our baby is fine before I decide?" she finally asked.
Our baby.
Somehow, the words became even more glorious when they exited her lips.
"Absolutely," said Dylan. "But just know every time you get near ice, I'll be right beside you to catch you if your feet give out and your ass starts to lurch. Longer. That includes when you aren't pregnant and when you aren't holding our child. I like your ass entirely too much to watch it topple on the ground."
"I like your arse, too," she said with a smile that both yanked at his heart and pulled out the tools to repair it.
He thought he saw her smile reflected in her eyes, if only for a moment.
He kicked out his feet by her bedside, prepared to sit there all night and then some.
Brandon and Val came in and out, Val sobbing as she joked that Brenda reveled in making Val shit herself. David and Steve, Dylan was told, had cemented themselves to the lobby chairs until visiting hours resumed.
Hearing Brenda's light snores, Val asked if Dylan would be moving in or if he would be moving Brenda out.
As incensed as he was with Val, he knew she needed Brenda around to a nearly equal level that he did.
And vice versa.
"She's thinking it over," said Dylan. "But either way, you're not staying in that apartment."
Brandon and Val temporarily left to update David and Steve, Val telling Brandon that he'd be the one doing the updating and she'd be the one flirting with the first doctor she saw.
"What if the doctor's married?" asked Brandon.
"I'm not gonna make anything of it," said Val. "It's just flirting."
"You're gonna hurt David because you're mad at him for exposing our lie?"
"Who?" asked Val.
"Silver," said Brandon. "Davey." At Val's blank expression, Brandon nearly rolled his own eyes. "Gold."
"I don't acknowledge people floating around in the Styx," said Val.
"I don't know how you even know about the Styx."
"By reading mythology to Bren. Duh."
"Only Bren could get you to read mythology."
"Willingly," said Val. "Only Bren could get me to read mythology willingly."
Dylan took advantage of their absence to kiss Brenda's forehead and stomach.
He whispered to their child, telling his little Walsh-McKay how loved they were. How wanted.
He told the baby how they had already survived. Commanded them to survive again.
He finished by telling his child that they would always have two caring parents and never want for anything, the way he had.
In the McKay family, fortune had bought abandonment, a longing Dylan could never fill for a family who gave a damn.
His child would never feel that way. He and Brenda would make sure of it.
Nor would they be pushed off on the au pairs with whom Jack had fucked around.
Dylan withdrew before he fell asleep, lest Brenda awaken and see he had fallen asleep on her without first asking permission.
"Dylan."
Shaken awake, Dylan leapt in his seat as he gathered his bearings.
"Dylan," she said again.
"Everything okay?" he asked Brenda, blinking out the sleep crust that had formed in his unconscious state.
"Everything's fine," she said.
The nurse standing beside Brenda granted them a face that indicated Brenda had only told a partial truth.
"Okay, so everything's almost fine," she amended. "I've got low blood pressure. That isn't uncommon, but they said it's too low so now I need to watch out for that on top of everything else I already have to mind, which explains why I keep feeling dizzy, which caused me to lose my balance on that ice. And my back's gonna be sore for a bit. But the baby's fine. Truly."
"Why didn't you wake me when they were examining you?"
"Because I find your snores to be quite comforting. In fact, I'm almost certain they're loud enough to drown out a train."
Dylan was too relieved to think of a lighthearted comeback.
He asked for a pen, writing down on the back of a tissue what steps they needed to take to ensure Brenda's blood pressure remained at a normal level.
He then asked other questions he thought expectant fathers may ask.
He wished he could access the Internet in his hand to look up others.
He'd hit up the search engines and bookshop when he got the chance.
"Ready?" asked Dylan once Brenda had been discharged.
"Ready," she said, allowing him to hold her waist. "Let's go home."
"Let's?" he asked, his stomach squirming in cautious anticipation.
"Yes," said Brenda. "You can move in. You've missed out on too much of this. I won't be responsible for making you miss out on any more. I'm not ready to see if I can be without Brandon, so you can move in."
"And help take care of you, and him or her?"
"Her, I'm quite sure. We can find out, if you want. I couldn't bring myself to without knowing if I'd have the capability to raise her."
"You're more than capable. If finding out is what you want, then I'd like that."
Brenda asked about the possibility of a quick scan.
They left the hospital with an appointment, and discussions of Dylan's impending move.
"We'll raise him or her?" he asked. "Together?"
"Together," said Brenda. "As friends. Close friends. More like family."
If she thought they would still be solidly in the friend or casual family zone by the time labor hit, she was severely mistaken.
He had twenty weeks to solidify himself as the man Brenda loved and wanted to experience her life with, assuming their child was neither premature nor late.
June, he calculated. Right around the time when Brenda had first broken up with him.
He had twenty weeks to help her remember why she had loved him.
Twenty weeks to explain what had gone wrong in their relationship, once Brenda would be willing to hear it.
Twenty weeks seemed a long time. Dylan knew it would speed by.
He had to find that fucking panda dress. She'd no longer be able to wear it as he had planned, but she could at least see it and perhaps be reminded of their first time that had led to their first discussion of parenting together.
He was going to raise a child with his Brenda, something he had dreamt about as a teenage boy in a well-loved diner.
He couldn't wait.
His excitement dampened slightly as they approached Brandon's vehicle, where David stood begging Val to talk to him.
Steve stood beside David, with David yelling at Steve that he wasn't helping the situation.
"What happened there?" asked Brenda.
"The married couple had a fight," said Dylan.
"Val and David are married?"
"I was talking about David and Steve," said Dylan.
"Really?" asked Brenda, eyes wide with query.
"No," he said. "But sometimes, you'd swear they are."
"Are any of you married?" asked Brenda. "Besides Andrea."
"Andrea's divorced," said Brandon. "Dylan was married once."
"You were?" she asked. "Does that mean we're divorced?"
If he got lucky enough to watch Brenda walk down the aisle to him, there was no fucking way he'd sign his name to papers nullifying that aisle.
"You and I were apart at the time," said Dylan. "Toni - that was her name - she - well, her father was a murderous, bloodthirsty nutcase. He put a hit out on me and she; she took the brunt of it."
"I'm sorry," said Brenda. "Do you have nightmares?"
"I have," he said. "I do. Not of that, not in at least two years, but I definitely still have nightmares about plenty of other things."
K2. Derailed trains. Exploding cars. His nightmares could inspire Tinsel Town.
"There was a time when I thought they'd never stop," he said.
"That's how I feel," she said. "They're never-ending. They make me think I can't take care of my - our baby. That I'll have to put her up for adoption, or I'll scream through her cries."
"Whatever happens, Bren," said Dylan, drawing her into his side, "our baby," he set his palm on her stomach, "is not going up for adoption."
"Thank you," said Brenda.
"Brandon almost got married," he told her. "And Steve thought he had knocked someone up."
"I didn't know you almost got married." Brenda turned a critical eye on her brother. "Is that the woman with whom you're in love?"
"I told you," said Brandon. "I'm not in love."
"You're not a very good liar, Brandon."
"I'd say he's better than you'd expect," said Dylan.
"Well, we won't be raising this baby around any lies," said Brenda. "Agreed?"
"Agreed," said her boys, in unison.
David stomped over to the trio.
"You know, in all the years I've known Val, I've never been a recipient of this much of her anger," he said.
"Why is she angry at you?" asked Brenda. "I thought you liked each other."
"So did I," said David. "I was really looking forward to those benefits," he mumbled.
"I felt so bad for Dylan," said Brenda. "But it's obvious that there's some serious lightning between you and my Valkyrie, David Gold."
Before David could correct her, Brandon mouthed at him to zip it.
Dylan shifted Brenda to face him. "Why did you feel bad for me?" he asked.
"Don't worry," she said. "You don't have to hide it just because I'm carrying your child."
"Hide what?" he asked, utterly befuddled.
"That you're in love with Val," she said with a double tap to his cheek. "It's so blatant, I'm surprised she hasn't noticed."
Dylan's arm loosened around Brenda in his shock, allowing her to skip off to Val.
"No skipping!" said Brandon. "There's ice in this parking lot, too."
Brenda slowed her pace. Dylan wondered how adorable her ass would look should she start to waddle.
"She - she thinks I'm in love with Val?" he asked.
"Val's off-limits," said David. "Even if she sticks to her promise and never lets me back into her life, you can't have her. You had a chance at her. Then again, so did I." He scowled at the pavement. "And I let her go."
"Be serious," said Dylan. "I'm having a baby with the woman who made me accept love at first sight is possible, sometimes. You really think I want Val?"
"Doesn't matter what Silver thinks," said Brandon. "What'd you do to make Bren think you love Val?"
"Nothing!" said Dylan. "I've been all about Brenda. Taking care of her. Holding her when she asks. Bringing her to memory training. Figuring out activities she can do that will get her out of the apartment more and won't overwhelm her. Feeding her when," he paused, "oh, fuck."
"What?" asked David, half-paying attention as he watched Brenda talk with Steve.
Valerie talked with Brenda, Val's hand literally telling Steve to talk to the hand because Val's face wasn't gonna listen.
"Feeding her when Val mentions that she's hungry," said Dylan. "Fuck. She was probably secret coding that Bren was hungry. I ran into them at an ultrasound. Talked to Val about the update I now realize she never said was hers. And I think my gaze may have drifted to her stomach, once or twice." Dylan punched at his hand. "Goddammit!"
"What were you doing, looking at Val's stomach?" asked Brandon.
"Picturing how Bren would look when she had one of her own!"
Brandon's apathy slipped into joviality. "The woman you're in love with has no memory of you except for what she's created in the last three weeks, is carrying your child, and thinks you're in love with her best friend, who convinced you she was the one who was pregnant instead because we thought you'd be a deadbeat."
"Yeah, well thanks to you assuming Dylan would be a deadbeat instead of giving him the opportunity to show otherwise, Dylan and Steve decided to fuck up my one shot at getting my own girl back," said David. "Thanks so much, Brandon."
"Steve thought you were hooking up with Clare and I thought I'd have to compete with you for Bren," said Dylan.
"How did I give either of you that impression?" asked David, flabbergasted.
"You are staying with Clare," said Brandon.
"She and Donna set it all up. I just got on the plane," said David. "Don and Kel said I needed to get away before I wrecked my life. But I guess that happened anyway."
Brandon and Dylan exchanged a look.
"Should we be worried about you, Silver?" asked Dylan.
"I'm not using, if that's what you're asking," said David. "Not that it hasn't been tempting."
"As long as you're here, you're coming with me to my meetings," said Dylan. "I won't accept any excuses."
"Maybe at those meetings, you can discuss why you assumed I was into Bren. Not that she isn't gorgeous or anything, but Val's kinda the only woman I see these days."
"I hear ya," said Dylan. "Bren met you for the first time to her and you bought her a CD. What was I supposed to think?"
"That Bren really wanted a CD and she had left her money in the restaurant she and Val went for pie."
"She left her money?" asked Dylan, making a mental note to mention David's comment to Alina.
"It was a small coin purse," said David. "We went and were able to get it back immediately. But Bren was worried she'd return for the CD and it wouldn't be there. Val didn't have any money on her, so I bought it for Bren."
Dylan asked which CD it had been.
The Rave-Ups, said David.
Dylan had been right. He did have to find that dress.
"Val thinks you're back with Donna," said Dylan.
"We covered that already," said David. "At the club. During the date that was fucking fantastic, until you and Steve torpedoed it."
"I owe you."
"Fuck yeah, you do. Big-time."
"What do you have in mind?"
"You're gonna help me get Val to change hers. Her life was at a precarious point last spring, right after I broke up with her. Took her no time at all to convince herself I didn't care; which, for the record, is a fucking lie. Between that and her being all the way on the other side of the fucking country, it made me realize I have zero desire to live without her. Dark thoughts and all. I convinced myself she'd move on. She hasn't. I haven't. Why the hell should we, if we both want each other? Or; did, anyway."
"I know what you mean." Dylan's gaze fell on Brenda, as it often did. He didn't need a mirror to know he looked like the world's biggest lovelorn sap. "Just be glad she didn't forget you," he said.
"Yeah," said David, "but now she'll wish she could. So you better start brainstorming."
"Well, Dylan's gonna be Val's new roommate," said Brandon. "That ought to help somewhat."
Dylan thought David would cough out an inferno.
"Chill," said Dylan. "I'm moving in solely for Bren. Brandon and Val will just happen to be there too because Bren's situation means she's extremely attached to Brandon at present and Val will throw both Brandon and I in the Styx if we tell her to move out."
"She'd bury us in the Styx," said Brandon.
"What's the Styx?" asked David.
"Your new home, apparently," said Dylan.
"I'm so confused," said David.
"Join the club," said Dylan.
"Kel misses you, by the way," David told Brandon.
"She can tell me herself," said the latter.
"So I guess you won't be flying back to LA?" asked Dylan to David.
"Not without Val," said David. "And it gives me a break from Gina trying to find ways to not-so-subtly grope me while she tries to make Noah jealous so he'll cheat on Donna again. How were you with her, man?"
Brandon aimed a stone-cold glare at Dylan.
"Who the fuck is Gina?" he asked.
"I plead the fifth," said Dylan.
He ran over to rescue his girl from Steve's continued half-explanations that had left Brenda baffled.
"Give it up, Steve," said Dylan. "Val's not gonna talk to you."
"You're only getting a pass because of Bren," Val told Dylan. "A restricted pass."
"A restricted pass to what?" asked Brenda.
"Not important," said Dylan. "Wanna come with me to the hotel to pack up my stuff?"
"Sweet," said Steve. "I get the suite to myself."
On Steve's dime, said Dylan.
"Brandon," said Val, "tell your friend to not even think about moving in with us."
Steve glowered at her.
"Then where am I supposed to stay?" he asked.
"LA," said David. "In the house you let get infiltrated by strangers so that it may as well have become a hotel."
"No way am I leaving just when things start getting entertaining," said Steve as Brandon and Valerie walked off.
"Looks like you two are gonna be roommates," said Dylan, tucking Brenda against his shoulder.
"I am not rooming with him," said David. "I'm perfectly happy at Clare's."
"Continuing to stay at Clare's isn't gonna help the Val situation," said Dylan.
"Dammit," said David.
"So you are in love with Val," said Brenda. "I knew it." She caressed Dylan's knuckle. "Poor Dyl."
"I am not in love with Val," said Dylan.
"That's the same thing Brandon says," said Brenda. "It's okay. You don't have to deny it."
"Brandon's in love with Val?" asked David.
Steve rushed forward to prevent David from thrusting his fist into the hood of Steve's and Dylan's rental car.
"Bran's in love with someone Val says I don't know who Bran swears he isn't in love with," explained Brenda.
Recognition ignited in David's eyes.
"I swear to you," said Dylan. "I am not in love with Val."
"Didn't we say no lies around the baby?"
"But it isn't a lie." He linked his fingers with Brenda's and placed their joined hands against the curve of his jaw. "I'm in love with you, Bren."
"You don't have to say that."
"I'm not saying it just to say it."
"Plenty of parents co-raise their children without being together, and I think the best thing for ours right now is if I focus on myself. If I focus on my recovery, on finding a way to stop or at least lessen the screams before our baby is born. I don't need you to pretend to be in love with me."
So in other words, Bren is choosing herself, he thought. Go figure.
"I'm not pretending," said Dylan.
"Mm, don't believe it," said Brenda. "Should we go to the hotel now?"
"Yeah," he said. His voice teemed with underlying frustration he knew he couldn't allow to spill out. "We can go."
He'd tried it in words. Not in the elaborate words of the poets he devoured, or the archaic words he knew Brenda loved to read in her historical romances, but in the words of a simple surfer in love. He'd tried it with the play, in which the ability to edit had allowed him to dig through the hundred thousand words in the English language and find the descriptors that fit their story best.
Words had, quite literally, failed.
He'd have to show her in his actions. Show her that he could be there for her, for their child, in an appreciably more significant role than Brenda had in mind.
Twenty weeks.
Twenty weeks to convince Brenda he wasn't in love with Val.
Twenty weeks to coax Brenda into accepting his declaration of love towards her.
Twenty weeks to get help for his K2 memories if he didn't want them both to scream through the night.
Twenty weeks to make Brenda his wife before their kid was born.
Okay, that one was pushing it.
Fiancée, maybe.
Girlfriend, at the very least, with the option for marriage later down the road.
Plenty of people married in their early twenties. Had kids. Started families. Got pets.
Brenda would want a pet. She'd always wanted a pet. Horse. Dog. Hell, he'd get her a fucking porpoise if she wished it. Build an aquarium in their backyard.
Or buy a place that put the beach straight in their backyard.
They'd have a jungle gym. A tire swing. A porch swing, the kind that had been a staple in his late grandparents' home. Somewhere Dylan could sit and read to their kid while Brenda snuggled underneath Dylan's arm and called out the sexism in the writing.
Somewhere with adventure. Somewhere their kid – or kids – could explore.
One on the way. Five more to go.
Would they be moving back to LA? Dylan doubted it. Brenda hadn't been fond of the idea when it had come up around Brandon's wedding. Too many awful memories there, she had said. She hated the smog-filled tourist trap. The pretentious attitudes of Beverly Hills. The jousting tournament that was LA industries.
LA was out. Dylan wouldn't make his new family live out their days in the code that had decimated his first. His kid wouldn't rub shoulders with elitists who got off on belittling their staff. Wouldn't walk into his father's office to see his father's hand up the skirt of the twentysomething secretary. Wouldn't be dragged to societal functions where the only form of entertainment was seeing how plastered one could become at the age of twelve.
Fucking LA. Why had he ever returned? The beach? LA wasn't the only place with a beach. Europe had plenty of its own.
London. The deaths of their friends would be felt everywhere they went in the city, including the old pub. Paris. The city had bewitched them both; yet had played a role in destroying Dylan's initial fidelity and sending Brenda straight into the arms of some pretty boy Wisconsinite named Rick. Would they stay where they were? Would they go elsewhere in California, maybe San Diego or up the coast to one of those towns other Californians knew only as places to drive through to get from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, and then Santa Barbara to LA? Head out to other parts?
Had Brenda hooked him? Sí, señorita. Hooked him with the end of her fishing rod. Coiled him around her finger with her glittering garland. Connected him to her for life; because Dylan's ass, like David's, wouldn't be going anywhere.
Not without her.
That was his choice, one he would make with every tick of the clock.
Wherever Brenda went, he'd be alongside. Theirs wouldn't be one of those custodies where the kid lived with one parent and saw the other only on holidays or summer vacation. Their kid wouldn't have a stepfather; or a stepmother, for that matter. Other kids could have stepparents. Some kids might have great stepparents. They might find their stepparents to be better than their own parents.
Their kid wouldn't get the chance to find out.
Dylan did hope, however, that Brenda wouldn't select Minnesota. He'd move there if he had to, but he couldn't see himself in Minnesota, or anywhere in that part of the country.
He wondered how she'd feel about a Mediterranean home, somewhere with a surf that rivaled California's.
He had twenty weeks to figure out the details.
As he somehow also figured out a way to repair David's mangled love life when Val desired to buy David a first-class ticket to Charon, with Steve trailing behind.
Dylan had his work cut out for him.
But first, he'd buy Brenda and their kid lunch.
Along with all the dessert she could ask for.
If it was pie, all the better for him.
Of one thing, Dylan could be certain.
The girl from Minnesota's metropolitan had given the boy from California's oft-filmed destination the family he had always yearned for – twice over.
And he would fight for that family with his every molecule, the way his parents never had.
-x
Thanks a million! x