Aevum of Itero

Chapter 9

The silver-plated box of blank wedding invitation samples had sat on the corner of her dresser for a week before she accepted the reality that she was late.

She'd been late before; twice, in fact. Both had been false alarms.

But not this time.

This time, she had sat in the exam room with her fiancé to be informed of their upcoming parental journey.

Connor had been overjoyed.

She had been hesitant.

She had accepted his ring. She had, quite happily, agreed to be his wife.

It wasn't as if she had expected for them to be childless.

But the more she considered the notion of mothering Connor's children, the more weirded out she became.

She had only ever imagined raising children with her ex.

Perhaps because during the second scare, she had been convinced she would.

Her ex who, fourteen years later, she had begun to fear she would never get over.

What was it about that fucking Dylan McKay that made him so damn impossible to forget?

She had crumpled the invitation she had planned to send to him, to - what? Rub his nose in her happiness? Prove to him she could move on just as easily as he had, albeit a decade after the fact? See if he reacted with the tiniest twinge of what she had felt when he had sent her his own wedding invitation years before?

It was futile. Whatever she had once meant to him, she clearly no longer did. She wasn't one who sent invitations out of pure spite.

She sent one to Steve, and one to David.

None to Dylan McKay, he who never released his fucking death grip on her heart.

If he had, perhaps she could have given her entire being to Connor Monaghan.

Instead of half.

Now, she didn't have Connor, or Dylan.

She didn't have Val, Steve, David or any of her closest friends in the various cities of her travels.

Fuck, she didn't even have Brandon.

For the first time in her thirty-six years of existence, she was truly and completely separated from her twin to the point that they weren't even in the same century.

She had a name.

Someone else's name.

Walsham.

She'd been born a Walsh, dreamt of becoming a McKay, signed the paperwork to confirm her acceptance of Monaghan, and now, she was Brenda Walsham.

Not that she had a prayer of becoming a McKay when she knew Dylan never had any intention of marrying her.

Never got a ring, unlike Connor.

Unless a ring around his eye from another jealous, intoxicated outrage counted.

The Diolún who Nuala had spoken of; was he Brenda's Dylan?

Not hers. Dylan hadn't been hers since he had decided for the second time that he would rather be Kelly's; after he had decided their relationship meant less to him than his stash.

She doubted Kelly, the daughter of an addict, would have accepted Dylan's addiction. He must have given up the drugs for her.

Was he Dylan, just Dylan? A past Dylan? Relation of Dylan? No relation?