Disclaimer: Yeah, no.

At fifteen, he discovers her ring.

"Good little Christian girl, huh Clare?" He jokes. "Reaching hands? Couldn't have chosen something a little more-"

"No," she interjects, cutting him off before he can say what it needs "more" of, rolling her eyes at his tone. "It's a purity ring, what do you expect?"

She expects him to shoot back something else so they can get into another duel of words and wits, parrying each others' teasing insults until it's a smooth, even banter. (That, for the record, was one of her favorite parts of their conversations, or of her entire day; seeing which of them could outwit the other, or maybe the connection made each time they tied.) However, he just looks at the ring a perhaps a moment too long and a corner of his mouth quirks up into a smirk, but one somehow softer, somehow different than normal.

"Nothing. It's nice." He says this honestly. So honestly that she can't find any other motive behind it, and it makes her almost dizzy all over again.

At sixteen, she takes his ring.

Or rather, he gives it to her. For a moment, an afternoon. In between study sessions, because mid-terms are coming and she insists on being prepared. A day in the park, the open air. The fact that they still are in the same class is the best of fortune, because it makes finding excuses for spending time together easier to find.

In between study sessions, they tease each other, slightly different from a year prior, faster, quicker, because they know each other better, but also more intimate, more whole. The sight of it, to some, is too special to intrude on. At one point, he grabs her hand, something she is used to, because he has always had a tendency to express himself with actions, but then something metal, something warm from body heat, is sliding on to her finger (right hand, ring finger) and she is stunned.

Mouth open, she looks at her hand, still captured by his own, larger but only slightly. His ring, silver, now rests there. Not snug, but secure. "Eli, what's...?"

"Just testing something out," he promises, voice still light. She is about to ask another question when he clarifies, "It goes with your other one, doesn't it? I think it suits you a lot better."

She can only just retort, "A skull doesn't suit me at all," but a smile tugs at her face.

"Can't be sure unless you try it," he reminds her. "Why don't you keep it? See how it feels for the rest of the day."

They hastily return to studying when she reminds him they have yet to cover the ways Fyodor Dostoyevsky used religion to enhance Raskolnikov's suffering, though her eyes and mind can't stop from wandering back to the weight on her right hand, and the familiar presence on her left.

At the end of the day, she returns his ring, and when he asks how it felt, she says, "A bit loose, but not bad," and he seems to make note of this.

At seventeen, he gives her a new ring.

He is a year older, and he is graduating soon. He will be at college and she will be stuck in high school. Though he will be close, in town, a whole world will separate them, and she almost admits she's scared. He is eighteen, and he is going into a new part of his life, without her.

A week before graduation, after their last English class together, they spend the day together. Only yesterday they were editing papers, curling up for late night movies, people watching in the park, and now, in a week and two months, they will no longer be walking the same hallways. A tingle, a fear.

They are unusually silent. No ice-breaking today, nothing to get over the uncomfortable issue of what the next week brings, or what will happen come fall. Even some distance, even a metaphorical distance, can bring strain to a relationship. What happens when they don't have class to lead in to conversations? What happens when it really is just them, no Adam, no Alli, no anyone to provide a buffer? What happens when she graduates and goes to a different school, somewhere farther away, for she knows what happens when real distance comes between people, Darcy showed her that.

In the midst of it all, he takes her hand, something she is used to, because he still has a tendency to express himself with actions, but then there is an absence, a weight gone that is not familiar, and something metal, something cold from lack of contact, is sliding on to her finger (left hand, ring finger), and she is confused.

It's not his ring. She knows what his ring feels like. It is slightly smaller, different design. And she looks at it and can see a simple silver ring, a small light blue stone in the shape of a heart in the center, and she cannot find any words.

When she looks at him, she finds he is holding her purity ring, oddly bashful, and he says as if it explains everything, "I tried to get something cooler, but the jewelry lady insisted on this one."

It's only now that she notices his usual ring is gone, replaced by a silver band. There is writing on it. Promise.

And she looks back at hers and there it is there as well, Promise, on the underside.

"I don't want this to be the end of everything, Clare." She doesn't look up. She is still too busy looking at the ring. "And well, since I know how much you like rings..."

She looks up. His gentle smirk, so very gentle. He hands her back the other ring, the hands and crosses

"It matches the reaching hands, right?" Only she can hear the hope in his voice.

Swallowing and smiling, she responds, "I think they go together perfectly," and she slips it on to her right hand.

Before long, she doesn't even realize she has a second ring; it's become a part of her, matching right and left hands.

At eighteen, he takes her ring.

And then he gives her another.

The moment is quick. Spontaneous.

The ring is simple. Still silver, because silver works for them. Another stone. Simple as well, but with a white gemstone, as large as he can afford. Beautiful. Amidst the tears and joking (because they always have to be joking with each other) and hugging, she is murmuring, "yes," and she is laughing, the old ring laying on the table, for it has served its purpose.

At nineteen, they exchange rings.

Golden bands.

A ceremony. Dancing, cake (she shoves his face into it, and that is when the reception really gets fun), friends, family, two families, one family.

And then they drive off in his broken down hearse and at the end of the night, she has one less ring again.

One gold, one silver, a band and a gemstone.

Discarded are hands and crosses, Promise, a skull, another Promise.

She makes sure to keep all of them. They are stages. Steps.

They are a brief history of Eli Goldsworthy and Clare Edwards, meeting to marriage, before, after, and in-between.

Author's Notes: I cannot take full credit for this, because I definitely didn't come up with the idea. I was talking to a friend (helloeinstein :D) on livejournal about a picture that's surfaced, one of the promos from "My Body is a Cage." It shows the Torres family looking all serious and everything...and Clare and Eli are messing around. He's holding her hand and it looks like she has his ring on her finger. We (read: she) realized that he's putting it on her finger, like she's trying it on, and then I got the idea that he was trying to judge how big a ring to get for her for a promise ring (we're big on the idea that he gets her one in the future) and...this was born. It took me FOREVER to come up with the title, by the way. I am convinced it's bad.