A/N: I just wanted to say thank you to all of my reviewers! I haven't had a chance to respond individually to everyone yet, but I will get around to it! Your reviews make my heart glow! Thank you as well to the silent readers, the number of hits I have got on this story astounds me! So thank you and I hope you enjoy the next chapter.

Chapter Seven:

As they entered Wong Foo's, she felt her heart beat return to normal. She could do this. She didn't know what she was going to say but she could do this.

He waved at Sid as they made their way, not to their usual bar stools but to a booth tucked in the back.

"Is this okay?" he asked. "I figured this would give us more privacy."

She nodded in agreement, fearful that if she said something that everything she wanted to say would come spilling out. They sat down and waited for Sid to come over.

"Bone lady, G-Man!" Sid said, exuberantly. He noted the grim expressions on both of their faces and the tear tracks on Brennan's. "I know what you need, I will be right back." Sid said, heading back to the bar.

"So…" Booth said, pulling the poker chip out of his pocket and flipping it through his fingers.

"What's with the poker chip?" she blurted out.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"The poker chip." She stated. "You have never told me about the poker chip."

"It's personal, Bones." He replied gruffly.

"Oh, sorry." She said shaking her head slightly. So far this wasn't going well. They sat in silence, neither of them looking at each other until Sid came over.

"Here you go." Sid said, placing a cup of coffee in front of Booth and a cup of jasmine tea in front of Brennan. He didn't say anything else, just went off to prepare their food.

She opened her mouth to speak but for once no words came out. She didn't know where to start. Too much had had happened; her father, her realization about Booth, breaking up with Sully. Suddenly she didn't want to be here. She wanted to be far away, away from these feelings that were causing her so much turmoil. She felt drained and exhausted. Her face felt puffy, her eyes heavy from crying. She could feel tremors coursing through her body.

"When…" she stumbled. "When I was fifteen..." She saw his eyes meet hers in confusion. He didn't think that this is what she was going to say. She took a deep breath and started again.

"When I was fifteen as you know, they left me." She said, her voice wavering. "I remember the first night in my new foster home, after Russ had left. I was sitting on someone else's bed, looking at someone else's things. I remember sitting there, my hands clutched around the garbage bag that had my stuff. Not even all of my things, just clothes, a few pictures. They wouldn't let me take any of my books or figurines, just my clothes. The whole first night I was there, I wouldn't let go. I fell asleep on my bed, my hands still holding on to the garbage bag, holding on to the last pieces of me."

She paused, a tear rolling down her cheek. She brushed it away and continued, trying not to look at him.

"That family, they were okay, but they weren't my family. Everything that I known, everything that was familiar to me was gone. I had to go to a new school and try to make new friends. But they all knew that I was a foster kid. And I remember, sitting there thinking that if something happened to me, if I got hurt or I died, no one would care. No one would be there for me."

"I went through six different foster homes in eighteen months. Some were nice and some weren't." she said, taking a deep breath. "Then my grandfather got me out."

"From the beginning I knew. I knew they weren't coming back but I hoped they would. Once when I was eighteen I saw a couple walking down the street who looked just like them and I ran over to them and they turned and it wasn't them. Every time I thought I saw them, it was never them."

"And then last year…" she trailed off, trying to calm herself down. Sid came over and placed their food in front of them and walked off. She took a bite of the noodles in front of her and placed her chopsticks back down. She wasn't hungry anymore.

"Last year…" she tried to say again. Her lips were trembling. She paused and decided to take a different tack.

"So I went to university and finished my degrees and started working at the Jeffersonian. By then I had learned to take care of myself, learned how to deal with it. I met Jack and Angela, and later Zach and we started working together and everything was fine. I pushed it aside, I focused on work. It's what I am. My whole identity is wrapped up in my work."

She briefly glanced up at him, confused by the look in his eyes. It was something she had never seen before. She continued on.

"I was fine. Everything was fine. But then you came. You came and you pushed and you prodded and we argued and we became friends. For the first time in my life, I had people who cared about me, who wanted me. I never wanted that because people who care about me leave. They leave me behind."

"And….and…" she said, her voice choked with tears. "And I liked it. But then last year, my mom and McVicker and dad and…" She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears.

"Temperance.." he started.

"No wait…" she said, holding up her hand. "I'm so confused and scared. I feel like I am fifteen again, holding on to my garbage bag of clothes, not knowing what to do. And that scares me and all I want to do is shut my eyes and make it go away."

"I'm here for you." He said.

"That scares me too." She replied, looking back down at her food. "You are always there for me, beside me and it scares me because I couldn't stand it if one day you weren't there. I promised myself that I wouldn't be dependent on anyone, I wouldn't need anyone anymore, but I need you."

"It's you I need, not Sully or David or anyone else. It's you." She said, her voice shaking. "And I wanted you to know and… you probably don't, I mean we are partners….but I just wanted to let you know and say thanks for being my friend."

She slowly lifted her eyes to look at him and waited for him to speak. After about a minute, he broke the silence.

"I found it in a pair of old jeans." He said, bringing the poker chip out and placing it on the table. "I had stopped gambling hardcore about a year before, but I was still relapsing now and then. I was cleaning out my closet, trying to make space in my apartment when my phone rang. It was Rebecca, she was in labour with Parker and she was going to let me come to the hospital. I grabbed the first pair of jeans I could find, threw them on and headed to the hospital."

"I remember feeling so scared, I felt my heart pounding like crazy, I couldn't focus. The nurses led me into the hospital room where Rebecca was. She took one look at me and told me to get out. She decided that I could be at the hospital, but she didn't want me the room with her when she gave birth. I tried to reason with her, I wanted to see my son being born, but she wouldn't let me."

He paused, playing with the food in front of him for a moment. "The nurse led me to the waiting room and I sat in that hard plastic chair and just waited. I remember my hands resting on my legs and then I felt something in my pocket. I pulled out this poker chip." He said, lifting up the chip and rolling it around in his fingers.

"I thought about each time I gambled, each time I had lost everything. Part of me wanted to go spend it, to go to the tables and forget that there was a woman having my child who refused to marry me, refused to let me be there for her. But I didn't. I thought about him instead. My boy, who would need me, depend on me and I decided then and there never to gamble again. And I haven't." he said.

"But it's been hard. There were sometimes that I wanted to lose myself in it; the winning, the excitement. But I haven't. I kept my promise to Parker and my promise to myself. And I keep the poker chip around to remind me of that."

She nodded her head in understanding.

"Then I met you and the squints and it became easier to keep my promise, easier to let go of what had happened before. I focused on the cases and I got to be there for people, help people find justice. At the beginning I thought that you never needed me. You were this tough, headstrong, independent woman who liked things done her way. You seemed like you didn't need anybody. But then with Kenton and later with McVicker, I realized that this wasn't true. And as our friendship developed, I was glad that you needed me, glad that I could serve a purpose again. You let me be there for you."

"And for the record Temperance," He said, reaching out to grab one of her hands. "I need you too."