Authors Note: I acknowledge I have no ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210 characters or canon, the rest well yeah that's mine.
Chapter Two
The packing, the cab to the airport, the fucking plane- I remember nothing I see nothing but the face of my cell, waiting for it to call, waiting for the message to ding when we touchdown in Washington. It doesn't. I'm contemplating calling Steve for Brandon's address when I see him waiting at the luggage carousel. I lift my bags and then walk to him, the look the shake of the head. "She swore that you had changed, she describes this mature guy who drank juices, worked out, willingly ate vegetables, was adamant about working his program, recycled and was focused on getting his degree."
"Your point?" I throw it out as I move to walk outside, needing to be in motion. It's said with the limited energy I have for this conversation his opinion. If it isn't about Bren, it's pointless.
He shakes his head and begins leading me to the car, "either you are a better liar than I have, or she has ever given you credit for, and you were just playing at maturity in London, or she was right on the money and knew that you couldn't fucking handle this." I breathe he was pushing my buttons; I know she wasn't worried about me being there for her I know she worried of what came after that. What it would do to me to lose her without even a slither of hope to cling to that we would make it back to each other.
"Jones, you never have understood your sister and I, the power we have over each other, and that's okay I don't need you to understand, but I do need you to help me manage how to go about seeing her in the least impactful way for her health."
He clicks the lock on his car, "Dylan it's not a good time. Her starting any new treatment is hit or miss, it's risky enough. You on top of that, it's too much for her. Look I reserved you a hotel room and after work tomorrow I can talk you through her treatments, answer any questions, I'll even ensure you are kept in the loop on all future news. That's it though. Even if I could figure out how to get you both in the same room with the least amount of emotional impact on her, one look at you and she'll know. She'll ask how bad it got, and when she finds out."
"She doesn't have to-"
His scoff cuts me off, "have you looked in the mirror recently, in the last two years? I know every image of you guys in London off by heart, you are a shell of that guy. You were using for what, eighteen months? It looks like it and don't even get me started on your eyes- the pain in them is more than finding out about Bren, it's… you are broken man and by looks of it you've tried to stick yourself together with the crappy grade school glue. You aren't anywhere near ready to be around her."
Brandon had been harsh with me before, and I had returned the favour. We were always capable of mauling each other, ripping away the bravado that we wore to hide our failures and insecurities. We had though never lied or embellished while doing it. He may not have wanted to believe it, but Brenda did love London in part because she was out from under his prefect shadow his judgment for her not forgiving all our betrayal's; in my drunken haze I had told him the honest truth, and I knew he was doing the same now. This wasn't a tactic to keep me away from her, it was the honest truth. I wasn't ready to see her without causing her worry, guilt.
"The Hotel will be fine for now, until I can arrange an apartment here. You'll need to give me an idea of what Bren will need in regard to accommodation; her hospital location, outdoor space if any, what type of medical equipment she needs… I assume elevator access is a must to the carpark and no stairs at all." His grip on the steering wheel is intense, I'm surprised it hasn't triggered the airbag's. "Relax, B. I'll do what you require, I'll eat better, sleep more, go to meetings, exercise, and I'll… when it's time, when I'm recovered to the standard that I know her worry will be at a minimum then you'll let me see her."
His breathing out through his nose is the sound that cuts through the silence that my words caused. "Fine. Your apartment though doesn't need to accommodate her that won't be happening."
My chuckle is humourless, "you control the front door Jones nothing else. The rest is between your sister and me, always has been."
"And what does Kel have to say about that?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Of course. She's expectable right, always has been to you. She's nothing more than the mouse you like playing at catching, as soon as you have her you throw her away as it's no fun anymore-"
"That's rich coming from the guy that left her at the altar."
"Yeah, I heard you were there to witness that. Funny considering I have seen the video of Bren's opening night of Midsummer Night's Dream. Amazing how you could be at her show that night and still make our early afternoon wedding. Jones, you have a supersonic plane I don't know about?"
"Why does it even matter to you? It's unimportant, all of it-"
"Until it gets too hard watching her like this, and then you decide to have another around of your favourite game." He sighs, "it's sad, Kel is so intuitive about everything else but when it comes to you, she has no bullshit radar at all."
"Oh, I missed this, the world according to Brandon the guy who knows everything but sees only what he wants to see. Kelly is the least intuitive when it comes to guy's she likes, how many times did you cheat on her? Hell Collin hid his addiction and his sugarmumma for months, Matt was bloody married… let's cut the shit. I'm an asshole, I have spent nearly two years' taking out my pain on everyone, but Kelly is no victim of mine she believed that rubbish and sold it to the rest of them because that's what they do- it's a fucking group of enablers and you know it."
"Weren't you just standing up at Donna and David's wedding, aren't you a godfather now?"
"Again, what's your point?"
"You are still willing to use anyone for your own benefit and throw away all their kindness when it no longer serves you or a better offer comes around. Dylan, if you are here just for your conscious to play the hero, the mourning-"
"Enough. You can shame me all you want for how I treat everyone else, about my authenticity with everyone else, but not when it comes to Brenda. She's… she's my world."
"A world you threw away for a couple of weeks with Kelly over a summer, married someone else... Excuse me while I have little trust in the depths of your feelings for my sister."
"Jones as a said before you have no idea the power your sister and I have over each other. You have no idea what we mean to each other. You may think you understand the words, but you don't. You don't get us because if you did you would know none of those things matter. We will always put the other first, forgive everything-"
"And you forgive her? Twelve hours and you forgive her for sending you away? Hiding this from you, lying to you for months in London while she went through test after test?" He clicks his fingers, "just like that all is forgiven?"
"I don't have to like it, but I understand what she was trying to do. I understand her thinking. So yeah, I forgive her, because there is nothing to forgive."
"Let's wait and see once it all sinks in, and you realise how much she kept from you if you still feel that way. If you still think she's forgiven."
He drops me at the hotel and states he will be back tomorrow afternoon to talk me through all the medical information. I push him to do it now, but he say's he is already late for Sunday dinner with his family. Since Cindy moved back she comes over each Sunday and spends the day making a feast. It's their time to not discuss illness and treatments but laugh and listen to music. It's one of Bren's favourite parts of the week so he's not giving it up for me.
I ignore the bitterness the annoyance that I was interfering in a world they had purposely constructed around their family, that once again I was an outsider. I ignore it and get my bags and check in. I ask for a room with internet connection and then lock myself in there and try and learn everything I can about her illness. The next morning my breakfast includes more than just coffee, and after I attend a meeting, I stop into a sports store and buy trainer's. The quicker I can get healthy the quicker I can be there holding her hand.
By the time Brandon comes over I have eaten two proper meals, nearly collapsed after lifting weights I use to use for my warm ups, and bought more medical books than an aspiring doctor. He walks into my room and rolls his eyes at the pile, he doesn't believe this will stick.
As I place coffee in front of both of us and sit down, he looks at me, "where do you want to start?"
"First, how is she doing?"
"She's… I think happy would be the way to describe it though it's not her big smiles and sparkling eyes happy. It's a happy where she appreciates things, simple things. She loves sitting and just enjoying a good cup of tea, and that's it. She's not doing anything else while she drinks it, just sitting in the sun streaming through our lounge room window and sipping away. She receives letters from your friends in London and they are an event, like the time they took to write that letter is a gift, so she carves out special time to read them. She reads everything, plays, poetry, philosophy… when she is having a bad day and her energy is low you can see her reading and you know she is no longer in the room with you, she's on whatever adventure the character is having."
"Are there a lot of day's where her energy is low?"
"If she's conscious and doesn't push herself, if she maintains her routine she's usually pretty stable, but Andrea and Hannah visiting a few weeks ago made for a bad week afterwards. She wouldn't change that though, she loves those days with people she loves."
"Does she need around the clock care? Is there someone with her now?"
"She is rarely alone but she can manage by herself, she won't be cleaning the house or doing a weekly grocery shop by herself, but she doesn't require around the clock help by us unless she's having a bad stretch and even then, she could manage herself. When we first started living together, I went out to- well I had to go grab something's. She had wanted a tea; it was a bad day she just hadn't said anything. She walked out of her room, made it to the armchair in the lounge room and needed a break. I came home to find her sound asleep in the chair. Her heart doesn't pump as strongly as it should, so her muscles don't get the oxygen from the blood as fast as they need. It's like a car engine with the wrong sized battery, it will turn on and move but if you try to floor it it shuts down. She's like that now. Bad day's make it like starting a engine in the middle of winter in Minnesota."
"Does she talk about me? Us?"
He runs his hand through his hair, "you are a presence in our lives… always, but she likes knowing you are moving on creating a life for yourself. I think her plan has always been that if the worst happens, she wants you immeshed within a life that gives you structure, is full of love and support. She knows when she is in your life that-"
"You don't need to describe your sister's thinking to me. She is right, I have only ever hit rock bottom twice. Once six months after she moved to London and recently in LA, it's not a coincidence that both times she was out of my life, that I was cut off from her." My hands grip the cup, "your sister I wouldn't ever let her see me at bottom but I also know it wouldn't be possible to get there with her around. You remember me the first time, all of you tried to get through to me hell you even had an intervention. Bren wouldn't need to even ask, she'd just look at me and know if it was anger, pain, or frustration pulling me down. She would then give me the words of support, concern or ultimatum to kick me out of my spiral thinking. She is right though losing her forever, I don't- I wouldn't recover."
"Then maybe you should stay gone, go back to LA."
"Losing her and not having every potential second with her, to not see her smile, her grumpy face, hell even the death grip she gives when getting injections; being denied every possible moment with her, on top of her gone. It's… I… it doesn't matter now, I'm here and I'll be with her soon." I rub my hand over my face, unsurprised at the moisture found there. "Okay so July two years ago she got diagnosed. I imagine it was about May two- well now three years ago that she started seeing doctors."
"April. She was in that musical and began feeling a little unsteady after the shows, not able to hold the note as long. She thought it was a vitamin deficiency. Erica was doing better and wanting to try again in Hawaii; you were bringing her back to Iris. She started then getting the tests. By June, they had narrowed it down to her heart, ruled out all cancer's."
"They didn't check the heart straight away?"
"A relatively fit, young woman in her early twenties- they didn't jump to heart, especially with our family history. She was diagnosed in July-"
"And I was kicked out by by August. Why didn't they do the ICD soon after that? Not let her heart get so bad? I know I was in LA by the time it happened."
"No she… they held off until March then it became a requirement. It was an emergency procedure. She… her heart kept flatlining over a number of day's. Luckily she was already in the hospital so they were able to shock it back into working, but they put the ICD in then. That's when I found out. Her doctors knew from the surgery that it was always temporary, they told me they had little hope for the heart to be able to repair itself by then, after seeing the damage. It took a bit of time to wrap up her life in London and get her strong enough for the move, but by June she was in Washington. Nearly a year ago."
"Why did her heart deteriorate so quickly, did they not have her on the right medication to begin with or did her body not respond?"
"Jones… her doctors did what they could. It wasn't anyones failure or mistake that got her to that point." He pushes his chair back from the small table we are sitting at, runs his hands through his hair. "Brenda has always been stubborn, she… she prioritised other… she chose a less aggressive therapy to begin with and that's not to say the more aggressive therapies would have worked then and reversed the damage. No one knows if that path would have been any better on her heart, but going for the less aggressive it probably… no it did push her illness timeline up a bit. She doesn't regret it, and neither do any of us."
"Why would she go less aggressive? What other priority besides her life-threatening medical condition could she have had? Brandon what don't I know?"
His laser focus lands on me, and I feel him measuring me. Evaluating me. "What I'm about to tell you, it doesn't change anything our deal. You can't see Bren until you are better, but if you are adamant about seeing her I need this to be the least stressful situation for all and I need you to process this and be less angry at her-"
"I already told you I'm not angry at Brenda, I understand her decisions, how she was trying to protect me."
"And I warned you last night, you may not forgive her once you understand everything. You can't lose your head okay, you need to understand how volatile her health is now."
"Jones tell me."
"She missed her period a couple of days after you left. It had been erratic for months because- well her illness or stress. She said in January you had thought maybe…" My smile is weak but it's there as I nod; it was a good memory. "She assumed it was nothing until her bloods came back with increased hormone levels. She was only a few weeks along by the time she found out. Her doctors were adamant that medically she shouldn't progress with it further, that it would put too much strain on her heart, they also prepared her for her body to not accept the pregnancy."
My breath, I don't think I'm breathing. He registers that I have no patience for him to take his time. "She got through the first trimester and from what I understand she like everyone else assumed that it would be impossible. When her heart started to feel the strain, especially as she was unable to take the required medications, her doctors once again recommended a medical termination- she refused. She refused even when after even more tests her doctors thought it would be highly unlikely she or the baby would… they didn't think both would survive her going to term but they knew she wouldn't. By the time she hit her third trimester she was put under observation in the hospital as it was too dangerous. The baby was given steroids to speed up lung growth and it became a waiting game daily to see if Bren could carry him for either another day."
"Him?"
He grabs his jacket and pulls out his wallet, he opens it up and pulls out a picture. "Drew well Andrew but we all call him Drew. He was born five weeks early, she… it was an emergency procedure to get him out and then for day's after they couldn't get her stable. She kept crashing. They did the ICD then but her heart had been through too much."
I look at the picture, he has my brow he has her lips. He's gorgeous. "Why didn't I know? This is beyond protecting me."
"At first, she sent you away and she didn't know, but then… would you have let her choose her life, giving up her life over the potential of life? Everyone said to not do it, every doctor said that it would damage her heart beyond repair, and Dylan it has. She's on a transplant list but there is no promise that she'll make it to the top of that list before it's too late."
I would have fought her, told her that if getting her better meant we couldn't have biological children that we would adopt. I would never have let her put her life at risk anymore than it already was. "Since he was born why didn't I know then?"
"Call me crazy McKay but I didn't think a sick sister, a newborn and an active heroin addict made for a good combination. I told her that you were drinking again, that you were back in LA chasing Kelly. I told her to wait till your life settled down. Then she started to register even without the pregnancy how weak she was, she started to realise that she was never going to improve and if anything, she began to slowly feel worse. Her Will states that he goes to you, if you don't want him then I'm happy to-" my glare is murderous, he stops. "She is hoping that you'll be established in a good life, that you'll be healthy, happy, and stable. That you'll… she thinks that…"
"She thinks that there is less of a likelihood of me completely collapsing after she dies if I'm no where near her. That if I'm kept away that it will save me and our son once she is gone." I stand, I want to rip the room apart. I want to scream. She consciously chose to leave me, it may not have started that way but she gave up her life, our life together. "That's why she is peaceful right, that's why she is enjoying every moment? She isn't fighting to hang on and wait for a donor, she is waiting to die."
"She's fighting, she starts her new treatment on Wednesday, but do I think she is fighting to survive no. I think she is fighting, Val and I think she is fighting for you to be ready to take him." At that I knock over the pile of books, the books I bought thinking there was hope. "D, she is getting tired. Drew is a toddler now, and she can't take him to the park, can't chase him, he's… she changes his diaper on a travel diaper pad on the floor because most day's she can't lift him up now. He's getting big, heavier and she's getting weaker. She adores him, loves being a mother, and he worships her, he could listen to her read stories for hours, but she… she invites mum over most day's, she is asking the part time nanny to do more and more hour's. She is becoming worried about being left alone with him even for a few minutes, she's…" he wipes his eyes, "she shows him pictures of you and the gang, make's sure he knows all their face's. A few weeks ago, I was walking past their door, and I heard him say Kel, she is showing my nephew so many pictures of Kelly that it's his tenth word- she's preparing him to be raised with Kelly as his mot-"
I'm in the bathroom vomiting before I can even register moving. Brenda didn't hate Kelly especially as for most of our time in London she thought she might be her sister-in-law, but she stiffened anytime Kelly and my name was placed into the same sentence. Her mentally preparing her son, our child to be raised by Kelly and I… I vomit again.