This is an AU One Shot. Please check out my other stories. Enjoy!
Song is "Baby It's Tonight" written and performed by Jude Cole
The West Beverly High School students were all milling around in the quad area where a stage had been set up. It was the beginning of the 1992-1993 school year, their senior year, and per usual it was time for the annual Hello Day. All grade levels were invited to take part and almost anything went within reason, but most people stayed with dancing and or singing solo or with others.
David Silver was the emcee like he had been the year before. He was running down through his checklists and ran his finger down the list of performers. He nodded his head as he went down the list, when he got near the bottom, his eyes got bigger in surprise. He hurried over to the teacher in charge of the event. "Mr. Ashby, is this performer list finalized and accurate?"
Mr. Ashby finished doing his music equipment check and approached David. "Yes, it should be accurate. Let me see it," reaching for the paper. He glanced over it and looked up at David, "looks good to me." David ran a hand through his hair. "It's just that one performer I never thought would take part is on this list." Mr. Ashby spoke, "who would that be, you know every year there is a handful of new performers." David breathed out, "Dylan McKay, sir. He doesn't exactly take part in school activities, at least since I've gotten to know him better." Mr. Ashby nodded his head in understanding, "well, maybe he wanted to do something different for his final year of high school." David shrugged his shoulders, "yeah, maybe that's it." He looked out into the crowd of students and quickly spotted his friends.
A short distance away, David's friends were hanging out together. Brandon Walsh and Steve Sanders were tossing around a football with Tony Miller. After adjusting the stereo boombox that Steve had brought from home to a song instead of ads, Andrea Zuckerman stood up and directed her question to the three guys, "Hey, can I join the game?" The three guys looked up, with Tony tossing the ball in Andrea's direction. "Sure," Steve stated. Kelly Taylor went to sit by Donna Martin while calling out, "ok, I'm out. Enough football for me."
Steve ran over to Kelly, "but I haven't even had a chance to tackle you." He gave her a mock pout as she pulled him toward herself and gave him a quick kiss. "Maybe later, tackle football is how you lost Brenda and Dylan," she stated as she gestured toward the couple currently dancing nearby. Steve looked at them, "no we lost them to each other again, like usual. But, it was mighty funny watching Bren tackle Dylan. She had him on the ground so quickly." Kelly winked at Steve, "I don't think he was fighting her off very much." "True," Steve said in reply. "Hey, Steve you playing or are you out?" Brandon called out. "I'm playing," Steve called back, giving Kelly a quick kiss and ran back towards Brandon.
Dylan McKay spun Brenda Walsh around as she laughed out loud. He pulled Brenda closer, "What are you girls singing this year?" Brenda looked up at him, "you'll have to wait and see like everyone else." He kissed her on her forehead as he asked another question. "Just the three of you again?" Placing her head on his shoulder, she nonchalantly spoke. "Again, you'll have to wait to see. Ok, I'll tell you one thing, all four of us girls are singing something." She moved her head to look up into his eyes to see his reaction. Dylan widened his eyes, "you talked Zuckerman into joining?" With a big smile appearing on her face, "Yeah, we were able to talk her into it with help from Brandon. She sounded good in our rehearsals."
Maintaining eye contact, Brenda looked at Dylan with expectation. "So, what are we doing tonight?" Dylan smirked at her, "you'll have to wait to see." Brenda giggled, "touché." Her laughter was cut off by Dylan's lips connecting with hers. A few moments later, Dylan pulled out of the kiss. "Bren, I need to go get something from English class. Why don't you go sit with our friends and I'll join you later." He gave her a quick peck and walked away. She wondered what he went to get as she glanced around for her friends.
Brenda walked over to Kelly and Donna and sat down with them. "Look who has time for us now, Kelly," Donna states with sarcasm. Brenda looked over at Donna with a worried expression and Kelly gave Donna a weird look too. Donna looked at them, then glanced out into the crowd in front of her. "I'm sorry, I just thought Brenda had finally found a good balance of spending time with us, her friends and Dylan. Lately I feel she's backsliding and I'm getting neglected. Just because you have been dating the same guy for years and you're both deeply in love with each other, doesn't mean you can ignore your friends. I've been pretty tolerant these last few months, but I can't take anymore, so I decided to say something." Kelly and Brenda both stared at Donna, Kelly speechless and Brenda's eyes widened in concern.
Suddenly, Donna started to smile and laugh. "Got you, Brenda!" Kelly slapped at Donna in a playful way, "that was mean, Donna. You even had me convinced for a moment." Brenda looked down then back up at Donna on the edge of panic, "we're okay, I'm not spending too much time with Dylan over you?" Donna noticed the concern and worry on Brenda's face, "no, I'm just messing with you. Honestly, I hope I'm spending enough time with both of you since I know I've been spending a lot of time with David lately." Donna looked at Brenda and Kelly. Brenda and Kelly both smiled at Donna and she returned the smile. Kelly spoke, "I think we have all been spending a lot of time with our boyfriends, but I know my girls are still there for me." She pulled Donna and Brenda into a hug. They all went to disentangle themselves from each other. "How much longer until this thing starts?" Brenda said out loud. "Two minutes," Brandon replied with the rest of their friends, Tony, and a couple other classmates following behind. They took their seats as people hurried around the stage with last minute adjustments. The show started soon after.
Thirty minutes later, David came and got the four girls. They went to the backstage area and began their preparations to perform. Donna helped the other girls check their outfits for last minute adjustments, while Kelly helped the others with their makeup. Brenda gave Andrea a quick pep talk and went through the song with her one last time. A few minutes later, David was announcing them and they walked out on the stage and saw the guys from their group and some others standing up making noise being led by Brandon causing them to start smiling and laughing. After not seeing Dylan with them, Brenda did a quick scan of the crowd, but didn't see him anywhere. She didn't have time to worry though as she took her place with the other girls to start their performance.
When they were finished, the girls came off the stage with plenty of applause and even more noise than earlier. They had been a hit and went to join their group of friends again. Before they could, Mr. Ashby approached them, "girls, your friends have moved to another area, It's been requested that you move to the front center for the next performance." The girls looked at each other, shrugged and followed where the teacher led them. When they got there, they saw their friends, minus Dylan. Brenda looked around for him as she moved to sit beside Brandon, "where's Dylan?" Brenda continued to look for him as Brandon directed her attention to the stage. David stood directly in front on her, seated a few feet behind him on a stool was Dylan with his guitar. Brenda and Dylan locked eyes and he mouthed "I love you" to her. She smiled at him and blew him a kiss.
David began speaking, "our next performer is taking part for the first time. Heck, this may be his first school function he's taken part in. Welcome my friend, Dylan McKay." The crowd gave him a rowdy welcome as David walked off the stage with everyone's attention going to Dylan.
Dylan joked back with David, "hey, I've been to school functions before, just not many." Then he looked to his group of friends and zeroed in on Brenda. "This song has reminded me of my girlfriend since the first time I heard it. This is for you, Bren." Dylan began to play his guitar then began singing.
#
Won't you pick up the phone
'Cause I know that you're home
Too many words have not been said
For us to be living alone
Now all of the fighting
And all of the tears
Well they don't matter now
Another night falls dark and lonely
And you're the only one that I can turn to
If I ever needed your arms to hold me
Baby, it's tonight
And if I ever needed your eyes to heal me
Baby, it's tonight
So come hold me close
And show me that you still care
Let's take it to where it all began
And start again from there
'Cause there's no way out
As far as I can tell
I'm walkin' in a world of strangers
And you're the only one who really knows me
If I ever needed your arms to hold me
Baby, it's tonight
And if I ever needed your eyes to heal me
Baby, it's tonight
If I ever needed you're arms to hold me
Baby, it's tonight
And if I ever needed your eyes to heal me
Baby, it's tonight
Baby, it's tonight
So won't you please, please pick up the phone
Don't leave me to face this world all alone
Take some time
'Cause baby, it's tonight
If I ever needed your eyes to heal me
Baby, it's tonight
If I ever needed your arms to hold me
Baby, it's tonight
And if I ever needed your eyes to heal me
Baby, it's tonight
Baby, it's tonight
#
As Dylan finished his performance, his friends all jumped up and started whistling, cheering, and applauding him. In fact, it looked like Dylan had received a standing ovation, the only performer so far. Brenda just stood there, her eyes watering up, she was too stunned that Dylan had done something so public knowing how private he was normally. Brandon wrapped his arm around her shoulders as tears fell down her face, but he could tell that she wasn't sad or upset, "speechless, huh? Tears of happiness? He has another surprise for you." As Brandon finished speaking, Dylan appeared beside them.
Dylan took Brenda's hand in his and guided her a little off to the side where the crowd of people wasn't so thick. "So, tonight, we need to talk about our college plans. Yes, I've been thinking about going. You may have stopped that talk with me, but my dad is on a continual loop now. Only way to get him to drop it was to swear to give it serious thought." Brenda was still quiet just watching his face, the tears had dried up and she was taking in everything he was saying. He looked directly at her, "you're quiet, what did you think of the song?" He raised his eyebrows at her. She began to smile wide, "I loved it. Thank you." "Glad you liked it, that song really captures us, at least I think it does." "It sounded perfect to me," Brenda stated as she pulled him into a kiss that quickly turned intensely passionate, neither caring they were in public.
They pulled out of the kiss and looked into each other's eyes. Dylan glanced around, then back at Brenda. "Brenda, one more thing." Her eyes got big and she couldn't keep the tears from flowing as she watched Dylan slide down onto one knee and take her hands in his. "Will you marry me?" She was astounded. "Well, I need an answer." He watched her face, he could read her answer on her face, but he wanted to hear the words. "Bren, I want to hear you say it." Brenda found her voice, "yes, most definitely, yes." She tackled Dylan and they fell to the ground as she stated "yes" again and kissed him hard on his lips.
They stayed on the ground kissing as someone approached them interrupting their make out session. "Dylan, here's the ring." Dylan and Brenda looked up and saw Jim Walsh holding a ring box out. As Dylan took the ring from Jim, he greeted his daughter. "Hello, sweetheart." "Hi, daddy." Brenda stood and helped Dylan up too. Then she threw her arms around her father. "Is mom here too?" Brenda looked around then where her dad pointed. She ran toward her mom and Dylan's mom that was standing beside her. "Mom, I'm engaged." Cindy smiled as her daughter wrapped her arms around her and Iris. Both gave her their congratulations, then Iris spoke up, "you're not wearing your ring, Dylan still has it." Brenda looked down at her hand quickly, "yeah, need to go get that."
Brenda came running back towards Jim and Dylan. Just as Brenda threw herself back into Dylan's arms, Jim reminded him that dinner was at 8 pm and walked back to Cindy and Iris. Dylan glanced down at Brenda, "I think you forgot something in all your excitement." He pulled away and removed the ring box from his pocket and opened it for Brenda to see. She smiled as he pulled the ring out and grabbed her left hand and placed it on her ring finger. "Now, it's where it belongs." Brenda looked at it, turning her hand at different angles as it sparkled in the sunlight, then up at Dylan. "It's beautiful." Dylan pulled her in for another lingering kiss, then whispered in her ear, "your parents helped me pick it out. I have their blessing." "When?" "Yesterday, when I had the meeting with your dad after school about my trust. Also, we have some friends to tell this news to." Dylan guided her to their group of friends.
When they got closer, the others were goofing off and playing around. Dylan called out, "David, did you get it on videotape?" "Yes, I got everything, great performance, man. Congrats too." All the other friends stopped at that and looked at David, then over at Dylan and Brenda. Brandon looked at his sister's finger, saw the ring, and announced it to their group of friends. "She said "yes!" All their friends excitedly rushed toward them. Kelly, Donna, and Andrea came closer as Brenda held her hand out for them to see her ring with a big smile on her face. Steve, David and Brandon all congratulated Dylan with handshakes and bro hugs. Then, even the guys checked out the ring as the girls gave Dylan hugs and congratulated him.
As they all started to head back towards the school building, they chatted amongst themselves. Brandon spoke up to be heard over everyone. "Everyone is invited to dinner where mom and dad are hosting in honor of Dylan and Bren's engagement, be there at 8 pm." More cheers rang out as the group had noticed that Brenda and Dylan had fallen behind from the group, they were sitting on the edge of the fountain in the courtyard. Again, they were kissing and lost in each other. The friends watched for a short time with each making comments about how cute they were together, how perfect they were as a couple, who had seen the engagement happening before they even graduated and then headed back into the school in separate directions.
Author's Note:
This was written for my older sister that wasn't that big of a fan of BH90210, not my level at least. She liked the guys best, of course.
She immediately identified "Baby It's Tonight" as a Brenda and Dylan song soon after a local radio station played it right after playing BD dialogue on air. The dialogue was from the scene where they are at the lookout after getting back together in S2's "Wildfire."