Chapter 29: The Dad's Club

Yes, I know people are irritated at me bringing in another character this late in the game and really don't want to hear about her (and i promise, next chapter she won't be there, as much as i love her) - but I confess to setting it up nicely for a sequel to the story in the future- maybe using the time jump on the show. So bear with me - oh and review! We're at the finish line my friends.

"It's perfect." Brennan glowed at the unexpected praise. After a careful tour through her proposal, she had sat anxiously awaiting Taylor's approval. With a few minor changes, the plan was perfected. Now all she had to do is count down the days to Russ' wedding.

They came in synchronization back down the stairs, Brennan saying loudly. "I'm sorry but I just cannot offer you a position at this time. You're intellect would not be beneficial to our team." Scandalized, the squints (all save Fisher, who had slunk home at Wendell's appearance), gasped in unison. It was rather rude of Dr. Brennan, after all, to insult Agent Booth's sister and turn her down.

"I understand." Cam noticed it first. Taylor didn't look a bit let down, in fact, she was glowing with pleasure, a smile lurking under all her expressions. They ascended the Forensic Platform together, and Cam guessed shrewdly that it was all a cover for…something. However, Cam was spared the time to mull by a rather spectacular crash; missing the last step, Taylor had collided into a cascade of instruments in an almost cleanly executed tumble, creating a loud cacophony of steel against steel as she shielded her eyes.

Silence reigned absolute for a breathtaking second, even the lab techs freezing in their tracks before Hodgins started clapping enthusiastically. Angela laughed while Cam moved forward to help extract her from the tools. Booth, who was on his phone with a look of consternation on his face, paused only a second before resuming his call after seeing she was all right.

"Mr. Bray," sighed Brennan, a bit irritated at the interruption, "please get those cleaned up and sterilized."

"Right away Dr. Brennan." As he knelt next to Taylor, reaching over one of her knees for a probe, she breathed in deeply and looked up, their faces inches apart. He fell on his bottom hastily throwing himself out of her personal space, and she grabbed Cam's hand, flustered.

"That's a nasty looking scratch," observed Cam. The others clustered around to gawp, and Booth even hung up his phone. Taylor idly rubbed her finger under her right eyebrow and pulled out a compact mirror.

"Oh." Her voice didn't sound all that surprised. "I guess I hit something while I fell."

"Tilt your head up," instructed Cam, and Taylor obediently lifted her chin.

"Looks like you already have a scar up under there," Cam observed clinically, with a meaningful look at Booth. His countenance darkened at the implications.

"Yeah – my dad dropped me on the treadmill when I was two."

"What?" blinked Angela. Taylor twisted her mouth, crinkling her eyes at the corners. She didn't blush, exactly, so much as look as if her face wanted to blush.

"It's not as bad as it sounds. I had just learned to walk and it was one of those old fashioned belts where you have to push-"

"He dropped you on the treadmill? What was he even doing-" Booth's voice escalated in pitch. He looked seriously at her before yanking a sleeve up her shoulder. Her arm had two dark bruises on it. To match the blackness on her skin, Booth's eyes flipped from mahogany to ebony in fury.

"Who did this to you?" Taylor, bewildered but quick, realized his question.

"No, no…it's not like that Booth. I'm really clumsy. I'm sure I walked into a pole or wasn't looking when a kid threw a baseball…"

"Just stop – save it," fumed Booth to her. "I know all the excuses. I get it – but seriously, your dad-"

"No!"

"Agent Booth," Sweets' cautioned, pushing past Cam, "I think-"

"Hush," cautioned Cam in an undertone to him.

"No, guys, seriously I don't think-"

"Sweets!" Booth rounded on him, and the squints took a step back, a large berth around him. Hodgins looked compassionate. "Don't try to make this okay. It's not okay."

"I fall a lot," put in Taylor, timidly.

"Don't say stuff like that," ground out Booth. "Just don't. I get it."

"No you don't!" Taylor flipped from submissive to aggressive, her frustration at his ignoring her protests (albeit for good intentions) spilling over.

"You don't get it," Sweets corroborated quietly, and handed Booth a piece of paper. Booth snatched it from his grasp. Sweets looked directly at Taylor while the blood drained out of Booth's flooded temples and fiery temper. "I think you dropped your purse when you fell." Taylor's sudden panicked eyes gave it away. Her gaze raked the floor, and Angela was quietly putting both tampons and her wallet back into her handbag.

"Thanks." Her voice matched her ashen face.

"This is your dad?" asked Booth, his voice gravelly with some unnamed emotion Taylor couldn't quite place her finger on. She nodded and sidled up next to him. Out of reflex, he lowered the photo into the middle of the group so everyone could see, causing Taylor to blush for real this time.

"That's senior prom. It was custom for the senior parents to come to the banquet and get a photo with their son or daughter…" Taylor stopped talking when she realized no one was listening, their gazes ensnared in…pity?...and trained on the photograph.

"Your dress is beautiful," said Brennan, finally breaking the silence. It was. In the picture, Taylor's hair was coiffed and poised, and her dress was a pink fuchsia taffeta princess-like ball gown, rouched around the waist and cascading out in giant, pinned waves. The bodice was embroidered with pearls in intricate patterns to the waist. The mother and father matched. Brennan recognized the golden, curled hair of Dr. Walsh, dressed in dressy black pants and a white top with a high waisted thick black belt, its belt buckle a round diamond oval. She was obviously matched to her husband, in his black and white tuxedo.

The man who was Taylor's father in everything but blood was grinning, almost laughing, his brown eyes a different color than hers entirely, but brown enough to bear some semblance. His hairline was receding and Taylor was sitting gracefully on his lap, hiding his legs with her enormous dress. His arms were limp next to his sides, not encircling his daughter's waist. As big as her dress and its luxurious folds were, they could not hide the wheels or the headrest of his powerchair. He was paralyzed.

"What's wrong with him?" Hodgins had blurted it out before thinking, and Booth's murderous gaze and Angela's scandalized eyes had shut him up before he could do more damage.

"ALS."

"What?" Booth's face scrunched up in irritation. Cam's crumpled in sympathy. Brennan didn't cringe so much as breathe deeply and look at Booth squarely.

"Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis."

"Huh?"

"Lou Gehrig's," supplied Sweets, knowing Booth would get the baseball reference. Booth's confusion turned into a mixture of horror and regret.

"Oh…" he said, his voice suddenly soft and gravelly, handed the picture back to Taylor as Angela handed her purse back. "Sorry."

"Yeah it's okay."

"Is he dead?" Brennan's bald-faced statement had even Hodgins blushing.

"Fortunately, yes," Taylor's face softened.

"Fortunately?" Sweets asked, catching the blunder. "Don't you mean unfortunately?" Taylor had held her composure and endured their pity with long standing grace – as if, Sweets had noticed- she was very used to it. But now, just for a moment, she lost her façade of calm and snapped a little.

"Yes fortunately," she stressed. She stopped, embarrassed but not flushed, rather pale, either from anger or pain, Booth couldn't tell. She took a calming breath and her earlier seeming indifference returned. "It was a long, hard disease. And it took everything from him. His body, his mind. His family." The bitterness was blatant even to Cam, who wasn't a "feelings" kind of girl.

"That is incorrect," supplied Brennan. "ALS does not attack the brain-"

"I'm not very smart," interrupted Taylor, "at least not in science," she amended when Brennan opened her mouth to correct her yet again. "But please believe me, this is one area in which I am an expert. And I am not boasting. The dementia and disease attacks the prefrontal cortex making them…"

"Angry," finished Brennan, barely breathing the word. "And cruel, I expect. As if he didn't realize what he said was rude." Her gaze suddenly filled with the pity she usually reserved for Booth, or on more rare occasions, for herself. "It must have been very hard."

"Yes." Taylor did that infuriating thing in which she refused to expound upon a subject, thus rendering it closed. She came face to face with Wendell again, who mutely handed her another photograph to match the one in Booth's hand.

"And this one?" he asked quietly. Angela gasped.

"Is that you?" The photograph was obviously for a competition or for an art prize. Printed in black in white, portrayed was a light haired young woman. She was the focus, but her hair was chopped at jaw length, her top half of her body dressed in a business suit black jacket, and she was mid sob as if her heart was broken. It wasn't a beautiful portrait; her mascara dripped down one jaw like someone had hit her temple with a hammer and the blood had leaked black. Likewise, her eyes and nose were scrunched together in agony, a sob obviously ripping out of her gaping mouth. Yet beyond all the gut wrenching sobs, it was easy to tell the woman was still beautiful. Over one shoulder, blurred, looked to be a stone cross, and next to that, was a grey blur. Booth's stomach dropped when she realized she was in a graveyard.

"Yes," smiled Taylor, seeming to actually enjoy the fact her soul was on display in the most bare of way. "James won numerous awards for that piece. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in photography, and a job at National Geographic."

Angela spoke timidly, "That wasn't….that wasn't at your father's…" Cam seemed to grasp what she was asking and simultaneously muttered,

"Oh my God."

"Yes. It was at his funeral." Taylor's voice suddenly went distant, as if she were speaking of abstract theories and the fourth dimension. "James, he said that emotions couldn't be faked. I look different because I chopped off all my hair for...it made sense at the time... At first I was outraged-"

"Well, yeah," said Hodgins, his blue eyes huge and furious for her complete apathy. Only Wendell swallowed at her tone. Her story was striking too close to home. He knew what it was like to lose a father to a terminal disease.

"It received a phenomenal welcome," shrugged Taylor. "After a while, I became less self conscious."

"Who is James?" asked Angela, with a sultry smile, attempting to steer the conversation on happier ground. She should have been the captain of the Titanic for all the success she achieved.

"He was my fiancé."

"Was?" asked Cam cautiously.

"We broke up."

"Why?" Sweets was brash.

"He got married."

"What?" blinked Booth.

"Yes, to his second mistress."

"His second?" asked Wendell, shocked out of silence.

"Yes, apparently I was his first mistress. He was perfect. Smart, a photographer, a genius at people. It's probably what made him so personable. Irish to boot – great accent. He was very charming. I guess I wasn't the only one to think so."

"Well, that scum didn't deserve you anyways," grumbled Booth.

"Yeah," corroborated Cam hastily, "he chose wrong."

"Yes, I know," said Taylor dryly.

Everyone was spared the moment the glass doors whooshed open. They turned expectantly but it was Cam and Angela who gasped. Brennan was unimpressed as she made notes in her file, Hodgins and Sweets grinned in anticipation, Wendell fled, and Booth simply looked resigned.

Hand in hand, Jared and Padme walked up the stairs.

"So what's this I hear about a new little sister?" Jared asked jokingly. Taylor raised a hand.

"Guilty." Jared looked thrown, obviously disconcerted she was right there.

"Jared – this is Taylor. Taylor – this is my younger brother Jared."

"Hi," Taylor said, shaking hands politely.

"Padme." She introduced herself. Taylor smiled and read the situation quickly.

"Are you two married?" she asked, pointing at each person and wiggling her pointer fingers between them.

"Engaged," smiled Padme. Taylor caught a strained glance on Booth's face and guessed correctly it was a sore subject.

"And how long have you known each other?" She was remarkably adept. By the visible wince from the peanut gallery, she knew she had hit the nail on the head.

"Four or five months?" grinned Padme, shrugging as if that was her best guess. Her smile was a little strained. She decided to get back some of her own.

"Well, I certainly see that the Booth genes run strong in the family. Good to know that handsome here," she backslapped Jared's stomach with the rear of her hand. "That his face doesn't look too bad on a girl." Angela swallowed a grin, ever a fickle friend.

Taylor, instead of being offended, swallowed a small smile of her own. "It is good to know," she agreed. "Especially if you're expecting." Everyone laughed at the joke, not noticing Padme speaking under their chuckles.

"I definitely want to get on this wedding dress before I start to show." Jared stopped first, a funny look crossing his face both of awe and terror.

"Honey?" Padme giggled as everyone else's laughter stopped. Jared's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?" Padme sobered.

"Yes," she twinkled up at him incandescently. "I saw the doctor today. They can't tell the gender yet, but I don't really want to know? Do you?"

"Yes, I mean… no," Jared was agreeing stupidly, obviously stuck on the first part of Padme's confession.

"You…are pregnant?" he whispered, tears in his eyes. And then the couple was hit with a blast of sound; cheering and congratulation.