Author's note: Thank you for the reviews. I'm really glad you're enjoying the story so far. Just wanted to make some things clear: most of the facts that are in there that you do not recognize were made up by me, such as her hometown in the first chapter and some of the future information in the story. I saw all of the episodes of Bones but maybe I missed out on some facts so if some stuff don't make sense, I'm sorry, and please tell me so I can arrange that. Also, one more thing... English isn't my first language. Even though I'm fluent in it, I still have trouble sometimes writing stories in English. So sometimes, my grammar or my sentence structures won't be really good but please bare with me. It's not like you'll have to guess what I meant. Anyway, have fun reading the rest!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 2: The bodies

The rest of the day passed quickly. By the end of it, Brennan had managed to divide the bones into three piles and had started working on the reconstruction of the first body. She had promised Booth some final results on at least one of the bodies by the end of the following day and she intended on keeping that promise.

Angela had managed to drag her out of the lab and into her car at around 9:00 pm. She had also begged her to go out to a club with her but Brennan had refused. She was tired and just wanted to go home. Angela hadn't persisted.

She was about maybe ten blocks away from her apartment building when her cell phone rang. She reached over to her purse sitting in the passenger seat and with one hand searched for her phone. When she finally found it, she pressed Talk.

"Brennan." She answered.

There was no answer.

"Hello?"

Still silence. She was about to hang up when the person finally replied.

"Temperance?" the voice asked.

"Yeah..."

But then she heard a click. The other person had hung up.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What do you mean the person hung up?" Booth asked.

"I mean, the person just hung up."

"And they didn't say anything besides your name?"

"Booth, I was on the phone with them. I know what the person said."

"Sorry, I just don't understand all of this. This is so confusing."

"Tell me about it."

"Look, Bones, I have to go, OK? Just promise me you'll be careful and if there's anything else, just call me, OK?"

"All right, I will. Bye."

Then they hung up.

Bones pulled up in the parking lot of her building. This was just too strange, she thought. Twice in two days she had had a strange phone call. Who could be calling her? And why were they calling so late at night? As she headed up to her apartment, she searched through her directory to see who had called. She found the same phone number as the last time.

"Who are you?" she whispered to the phone.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What do we have here?" Brennan asked her assistant as she came up to the examination table.

A skeleton laid in front of her and she was waiting for Zack to tell her what he had managed to find out.

"This victim is a male, possibly between the ages of 40 and 45 years old at the time of the death. From what you have reconstructed, I'd say the victim was between 5'11" and 6'3" in height."

"What else did you manage to find out?" she asked him.

"Nothing."

"Do you mind if I take a look?"

"Ya sure."

Zack moved back a little to let his boss some room to study the body. She looked at it carefully and pointed out several things that Zack had missed.

"He broke his ankle, probably when he was a teenager. I'd say around the ages of 16. And look, this rib looks like it has been broken too. How could you have overlooked that, Zack?"

Her question had came out a little harsher than she had meant it. Zack looked down.

"Sorry, Dr. Brennan. I've just been a little preoccupied lately, that's all."

"What's the matter?"

"My... dad is sick."

"Is he going to be OK?"

"We don't know. At the moment, I just wish I could be with him."

Brennan, who was still inspecting the body, looked up from her examination table.

"Well Zack, if you need to take some time off to go see him, feel free. I'll work out something with Dr. Goodman."

"Really? You could do that?"

"Ya."

"Thanks. That would be great."

"Now, are you ready to work on the second body? Don't worry, I'll help you out."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey Bones, it's me."

"Booth! This is so weird. I was just thinking about you."

"Really?" he asked, a grin on his face.

"Don't sound too happy. I wasn't thinking about you, I was thinking that I should call you. That's all."

"Ya... OK. So, what have you got for me, Bones?"

At that moment, his boss came in his office and mouthed something to him. Booth replied that he was a little busy.

"It's for a case." He whispered, covering the phone.

His boss nodded and reluctantly left the agent's office.

"Sorry Bones, could you repeat that? My boss just came in."

"I said that the bodies belonged to a man aged 40 to 45 years old at the time of his death and to a woman in the same age range. They were both tall. The man stood at about 6 feet tall while the woman was probably 5'8" or 5'9". The tiny bones, as I told you earlier, belonged to an unborn baby. From the way the bones were developped, I'm thinking the woman was five months pregnant, maybe even six."

Booth sighed. She had told him earlier but he just wasn't getting used to hearing stuff like this.

"You OK?" Bones asked.

"Ya. I'm fine. I just... I don't think I'll ever get used to hearing stuff like this."

"Like what?"

"Like you telling me a pregnant woman was murdered, along with her unborn child who wasn't even old enough to survive on his own."

"I know what you mean."

Booth took a deep breath and decided to change the subject.

"What else did you manage to find out? Any cause of death?"

"No, not yet. The skulls are in perfect conditions and so is the rest of the body. The only thing wrong with them is that they had some fractures as kids but that's something pretty normal."

"What kind of fractures?"

"Well the man broke his rib as a teenager but it looked healed to me. Badly healed but healed nevertheless. We also found out the he broke his ankle, I'd say not long before he died. The woman broke her wrist some time in her life. That's all we could find out."

"Time of death?"

"I still stick to what I said earlier: fifteen years ago. Booth, would you mind searching in the missing person's reports to see if you could find something, anything really, that could help us identify these people."

"Ya sure. Anything I can do to help, Bones."

"Anything? Really?"

"Ya."

"Then could you stop calling me Bones?"

Booth let out a laugh.

"That I cannot do Bones."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two days had passed since Brennan's conversation with Booth and she still hadn't heard from him. The dentures had been taken on both the victims but without a missing person's report, there could be no confirmation for either of them. So Brennan had put the case aside and had decided to work on the new remains the local police had brought in. She assisted other forensic anthropologists in their examinations and worked a little on her book.

But despite her will to forget about the case, she just couldn't. She was feeling some kind of connection to the victims. What if she had actually known them? Maybe they had been her neighbors or maybe even the mailman and his wife. Every day, she had taken out the bones at least three times and had check them once again.

"I have a feeling I've missed something." She had replied to Angela when she had seen her today looking at the bodies for the second time.

"Sweetie, you've been over those bodies at least ten times. There's nothing else you'll get out of them. By the way, why haven't you asked me to draw their faces yet? It'll be way easier matching them to a missing person's file than with their dentures.

Brennan looked up at her. She had completely forgotten about it. Or had she?

"Is it because they come from you hometown? Because if it is, it doesn't mean you know them. You haven't been there in a while."

"They died fifteen years ago, maybe even before. I was still in Westminster at that time."

"But still, it doesn't mean you know them. Come on, let me draw their faces and I'll prove to you that I'm right."

"Fine."

And Angela had left, leaving Brennan alone in her lab. She had looked once more at the victims and had whispered:

"Do I know you?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hello?"

"Angela? It's Booth. I need to talk to you."