Chapter 25: That Cheeky Grin

This one is shorter than the others, but I need to gear up and get a plan. I know when a story is winding down, so I need a big finish. Ideas (And reviews!) are always welcome. No worries, I won't stop writing - this was just a wonderful fic - I don't need it to be a soap opera.

It was an odd ring, very old and very plain.

"This is the one ring," came a voice from over her left shoulder and Brennan jumped guiltily, caught staring at the gold ring in the palm of her hand for far too long.

"I'm sorry," she apologized clinically. "What are you talking about?"

The girl, with honey brown hair grinned cheerfully at her, her perfect smile flashing in her heart shaped face. "The One Ring," her enunciation capitalized the words in Brennan's mind, "is a iconic image in the literary world of fantasy written and developed by J.R.R. Tolkien in the 1940s as a reflection of the Second World War. The Lord of the Rings was later developed and adapted for the cinema about ten years ago by Peter Jackson. My jest that you are holding the ring of power comes from a popular cultural reference." Brennan's smile twitched at her explanation.

"I'm afraid I'm not very good at pop culture, but I appreciate your succinct description."

"You're an anthropologist," the girl waved a hand as if this should explain everything: to Brennan, it did. "I also appreciate when people directly inform me of the reference I don't understand in a holistic approach instead of laughing at me."

Brennan smothered another smile; the girl was sharp, no doubt about it. It had been almost three weeks since the entire car trip had been completed; no one had lost their job, but Cam had received an earful for picking up her people and leaving. Caroline had helped, covering for most of them, saying that although the case had occurred in Maui, the Squints had been needed in Santa Monica to help identify the remains.

However, Brennan and Booth had been mostly platonic. Booth was on leave and was living with Jared as the doctors had counseled he shouldn't be alone. He often texted Brennan about the agony of picking out wedding colors, napkins, and other wedding accoutrements with Padme. Brennan had smiled and ignored him. She knew Booth. He liked helping.

"I'm sorry…" Brennan waited for the young woman's name again although she had already introduced herself.

"Taylor. You met my mom at the t-ball game – I help coach Parker…"

"Oh, yes, of course. Your mother Katrina."

"Yes." They were both silent a moment and the awkwardness settled between them.

"I'm sorry," apologized Brennan again, "but why are you giving this to me?"

"For Booth," Taylor explained patiently. She seemed hesitant. "It belonged to his father."

"What am I to do with it?"

"Give it to him of course." Taylor's eyes were a bizarrely familiar color. A normal brown, but upon catching the light they flashed amber as she smiled. Something niggled at Brennan's brain but she ignored it.

"Give it to him." She echoed the words without comprehension.

"You're a working woman," shrugged Taylor, "it's a new age." Brennan frowned.

"Excuse me?"

"He talks about you all the time. Even to the boys. To me – all the time. It's easy to see he's crazy about you."

"You're suggesting…" Brennan's throat tightened. She was smart, and her brain had already flashed through all the possibilities that Taylor could mean. She knew what she was saying.

Taylor shrugged. "Well…yeah. You've been together what – almost six years? My parents dated for seven – and even then they were mostly just best friends and then romantic."

"We've only…we've only been together…" Brennan felt surprisingly unable to form the words. "Seven years?" she said slowly instead, her heart thundering in her ears. This was unthinkable. Ridiculous. Preposterous. Plausible. Outrageous. Her mind skipped back a word. Plausible?

Taylor nodded serenely. "They were the same age…five days apart actually – but dad had to drop out for a semester to work his way through school. He graduated a year late and my mom was already off to medical school. But the summer before medical school he rented the house next to hers where she lived with her mom…not even romantically – just to be with her because they were best friends. He waited for her because he knew her career was the most important thing to her. So they got married the same month she graduated medical school four years later."

Brennan blinked. "He waited…four years?" Her mind could hardly wrap around it. "What did he do for the year between college and medical school?" Taylor hesitated, chewing her bottom lip.

"I'm…not sure." Brennan didn't have to have Booth there to tell her she wasn't getting the whole story. She looked down at the ring again but covertly took notes about Taylor from the corner of her eye.

Taylor was younger than she by about fifteen years. Her mother had said she was what…21? She was of average build, not skinny, but in no way chunky. She looked athletic, with broad shoulders and hips and her honey brown hair, stranded somewhere between the colors of dark blonde and light brown, looped up in a cocky ponytail. Brennan knew by her vocabulary she was very bright. Taylor caught her eye, and Brennan hastily resumed her inventory of the ring in her palm, once again caught off guard by brown eyes under thick eyelashes. Perhaps it was the eyes, she decided, touching the ring with one finger, they were deeply set into her head, giving her sharp, defined features not usually found on the average American, with high rising cheekbones and a small chin, causing her head to look almost too refined for her body.

The ring itself was gold, but poorly polished. It was plain, large and heavy, easily slipping over either of Brennan's thumbs. However, she knew from experience that Booth's hands were big. Brennan had the grace to blush as she wondered if this ring size would fit his fingers. There were three rectangular stones set in the front of the ring, no more than half the width of her littlest nail across and still well away from the edges of the ring. It made the ring have a peculiar appearance, almost as if they were windows in a building.

Brennan was not Hodgins, and couldn't know for sure, but rubbing her finger over each, she was fairly positive that the first small rectangle was griqualandite, colloquially dubbed tiger's eye, and the shimmering bands and silky quality beamed out a very similar color to the young woman's eyes on her right. The middle was a lustrous dusky red glittering stone, the only one of the trio that refracted polished light, which Brennan could tell was a poorly cut ruby. The last was gagate – more commonly known as jet or fossilized coal.

"Is there significance to the three stones?" she asked Taylor, turning once more to face the young woman. Her face brightened.

"I think it's something along the lines of soul mates." Brennan frowned, thrown.

"What?"

"The first, the tiger's eye, represents childhood and the idea of companionate love, the ruby represents ardent love of adulthood and the jet, as black, represents the twilight of life and the inevitability of death." Taylor winked to lighten the mood. "But I think the meaning behind the jet is to say that as long as the light shines in the stones, the love can never die."

"And this is for Booth…"

"Yeah," she said brightly. "I know he's in love with you and my mom said that-"

"Your mother?"

"She's a quick reader of people – doctor and whatnot."

"And whatnot," murmured Brennan, idly toying with genetics in the back of her mind.

Brennan idly fingered it for a while.

"Okay…" she finally said, looking up and realizing for the first time that they were in the diner. She hadn't heard the clinking of spoons, the splash of hot coffee or the low murmurs of customers until then. Taylor had called the Jeffersonian to ask where she was and had sat down with a cheeky introduction and with a couple of outrageous comments that had deflected Brennan's social awkwardness with ease from what seemed years of practice. When Brennan had asked Taylor how she had come to be quite so personable, Taylor had smirked and said her sister was "that type."

"What type?" Brennan had asked, offended. Taylor had smiled, her tongue between her teeth.

"The genius kind. We thought she had Aspberger's for a while – she never understood – still doesn't - understand human emotions or the right context." Brennan had laughed guiltily and Taylor had pulled out the ring.

"Right," said Taylor, intuitively leaping onto Brennan's train of thought with an ease that uncannily rang of someone else's charisma. "Yeah, I'll go now – I just thought you should have it. Belonged to his father and all." Brennan blinked and she was gone, striding across the crosswalk in tall brown boots, her white thigh length cardigan covering a cerulean top that brought out her tan coloring. She had left the diner before Brennan had even thought to ask her how she had got it or how she knew it belonged to Booth's father.

Brennan realized she was toying with the St. Christopher's medal hanging around her neck. Although she still sometimes half heartedly tried to foist it back onto Booth, she had taken to layering other necklaces atop it, always wearing it, even to sleep.

Brennan watched the young woman leave, noting that her nose was aquiline and helped accentuate her prominent forehead, her high cheekbones, her deep set orbital cavities…She coughed into her coffee cup, her brain finally clicking the pieces together the way it did when she caught the murderer. The brown eyes, the cheeky grin, the charisma, the brashness, the walk…and the ring…the missing year… She understood. Brennan breathed slowly, coughing between breaths. Margret Mead she understood.

She looked down at the ring again, nonplussed.

Seemed like family genetics ran strong in the Booth family.