A/N: I know I frustrated a lot of people with Chapter 7, sorry but something just told me that they shouldn't meet in Chapter 7. But as I promised, here's what you all have been waiting for. Chapter 9 should be posted either today or tomorrow. This story has been long enough. What do you think?

A work out had been what he had truly needed. After twenty minutes on the stationnary bike and fifteen minutes of jogging on the treadmill, Booth felt more relaxed than he had felt in weeks. Back in his room he immediately jumped in the shower.

Ten minutes later he was stepping out of the shower, wrapping his towel around his waist and walking out of the bathroom.

As he got dressed he wondered what to do next. The work out had cleared his mind but hadn't given him the answer he had hoped to find. Maybe he could try calling her. Of course! Why hadn't he thought about it before? He'd call her cellphone. He didn't know if she had turned it on but it was worth the shot.

Grabbing his cellphone he dialed her well-memorized cellphone number. Maybe he should consider putting her on speed-dial?

On the other side of the wall, Brennan heard her cellphone ringing and, without even checking who was calling, picked up.

"Brennan." She said, as it was her custom.

"Bones it's me. Where are you?"

Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of his voice.

"Booth?"

"Yeah. Where are you?"

She didn't answer. She hadn't expected him to call. Argh. Why hadn't she turned off her cellphone?

"Bones, are you still there?" he asked after a few seconds of silence.

"I'm still here."

"You have to tell me where you are. I'm going crazy over here. We need to talk about what happened."

All of a sudden everything came rushing back to her; how she had confessed her love for him, how he had done nothing but look at her in the scared, almost disgusted way and how she had known then that she had made a mistake.

Didn't he just tell you that he was going crazy? Her mind asked her.

Was it possible that she had imagined the whole thing? Was it possible that because she had thought about it so many times that her perception of the incident had become biased and that maybe she was dramatizing his reaction every time she thought about it? She wasn't a firm believer in psychology but something in her told her that maybe she had over dramatized the situation and that, maybe, Booth hadn't reacted because she simply hadn't given him the time to react. She started to feel guilty.

"Justgive me a fewdays, Booth, OK? There's just something I have to do first. I'll call you back in a couple of days when I get back in Washington."

Before he even had a chance to reply, Brennan had already hung up.

"Damn it." Booth mumbled from his room.

The night had been restless for both of them.

After the phone call, Brennan had paced back and forth in her room, thinking about the short conversation she had had with Booth. She knew that he wanted to know where she was but a part of her hadn't felt like telling him. If she had told him, he would have wanted to come to Charlotte and she didn't want that. This problem, whatever it was, was something she had to solve on her own. She had gone to bed fairly early after watching a bit of TV and grabbing a bit of supper at a restaurant near the hotel.

Booth, on the other hand, slightly depressed by his short conversation with Brennan, had gone out to a bar downtown. He had came back shortly after midnight, exhausted and too depressed to pretend that he was attracted to the women who had hit on him. Truth was, he had felt like he had been cheating on Brennan and had decided to come back to his room before he made a mistake he could regret for the rest of his life.

Back in his room, Booth had played a bit of PlayStation before going to bed.

"Housekeeping!" Booth heard someone say outside his bedroom.

He opened one eye. What time was it? Grabbing his watch on the bedside table, he looked at the time: it was past eleven. Groaning he slowly sat up and rubbed his eye. He hadn't had much to drink the night before and so had no hangover.

The door to his room opened and a woman in her mid-forties came in.

"Sorry." She apologized as soon as she caught sight of Booth. "I'll come back later."

Blushing tremendously, she left the room.

Laughing softly, Booth got up and walked to the bathroom.

Sitting on her bed, cross-legged, Brennan listened to the ringing tone on the line. She was taking a chance and calling Dr. Brennan's work to see if she was in.

The phone had been ringing for quite some time before a receptionnist finally picked up the phone.

At least she doesn't have an annoying perky tone. Brennan thought, remembering the last time she had called somewhere and a receptionnist had answered the phone.

"May I speak to Dr. Temperance Brennan, please?" Brennan asked.

"She's not in this week. May I know who is calling?" the receptionnist answered.

Brennan froze for a split second. What was she going to say? She couldn't possibly say that her name was also Temperance Brennan, the woman wouldn't even believe her, especially if she added that she was also a forensic anthropologist. Then again, she didn't need to add that part.

"My name is... Temperance Brennan."

"Yes, of course."

Brennan couldhear in her tonethat the woman didn't believe her but she didn't care.

"I met Dr. Brennan a few days ago, she gave me her phone number and I was supposed to give her a call but I lost it. Would you mind giving it to me?"

She took a shot at it even though she knew that the receptionnist would most likely deny her the favor. And she was right.

"I'm sorry, Mrs Brennan, but I cannot divulge the number of our doctors."

"I'm well aware of that but, you see, Dr. Brennan and I have been working on a case together..."

"The case in Washington?" the receptionnist cut in.

"Yes, the case in Washington." Brennan replied, trying to keep the anger from raising through her voice. "And I have some new leads that I would like to discuss with her."

"Are you a cop?"

"No, I'm a forensic anthropolgist."

"But that's impossible. Dr. Brennan is..."

"NOT the only forensic anthropologist in the US."

It was Brennan's turn to cut in.

"In fact there are fifty of us who are certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. But I'm sure that's something you knew already. I was busy at the time of the discovery of the bodyso they called in Dr. Brennan but I helped her later on the case. Now I have found some new clues that she needs to know about. It is crucial that I get her number."

There was silence on the line for a few seconds before the receptionnist finally spoke.

"Alright, Dr. Brennan. I will give you her number."

Brennan was truly surprised. She hadn't expected it to work.

The phone rang but Brennan didn't feel like getting up. She was way too comfortable, laying in her bed, cuddled up against Ryan while the two of them talked about nothing in particular. She loved those mornings that didn't happen often. She loved just laying there with him. She loved him.

The constancy of the ringing annoyed them and Ryan forced her to get up and answer her phone.

"If you don't then I'll do it for you and it won't be pretty." He threatened her.

She knew the threat had been fake but she had nevertheless gotten up and grabbed the phone near the bed.

"Hello?"

"Dr. Brennan?"

"Yes. Who is this?"

"It's Dr. Brennan. From Washington?" Bones said, hoping the doctor would remember.

"Temperance! Of course! I remember." Brennan replied. "Why are you calling?"

"I was wondering if we could meet up somewhere. There's something I want to talk to you about."

"Yes. Of course. Are you in Charlotte?"

"Yes. I flew here yesterday."

Brennan nodded even though she knew that her caller couldn't see her.

"Let's meet at my office. We'll have more privacy."

"Actually, it won't be necessary. Are you hungry? Maybe we could meet at some restaurant."

The restaurant in question was Providence Cafe. Brennan had suggested it and Bones had simply agreed. She had no clue where this place was but as soon as she had told the taxi driver, he had stepped on the gas and had left quickly the hotel, telling her that she had made a great choice to go eat there.

For the whole drive, Bones wondered what she was going to tell Brennan. There was nothing really to say. She couldn't possibly just say: Who are you? How come you've never heard of me? How come you look so much like me? Then the thought hit her. Were they related? Brennan wasn't really a common last name. Was it possible that this woman was her cousin or something?

She couldn't get the idea out of her head for the rest of the ride to the restaurant. And as she stepped out of the cab and saw Brennan standing near the entrance, the thought of them being related grew stronger. But this didn't make sense. She didn't have any family members left. Russ was out west somewhere doing whatever it was he was doing, her parents had disappeared, her grandfather had died a long time ago and she didn't know any other family members.

She quickly paid the driver, told him to keep the change and ran towards her older twin.

"Hello Temperance." The older woman said.

"Hey."

"You hungry?"

"Starving."

"Great! Then let's go in."

Minutes later they were being seated on a terrace outside and looking through the menu.

"The food is expensive here but you'll love everything! I come here very often."

"With your boyfriend?"

"Not so much with my boyfriend. I rarely see him anyway. No, I used to come here often with my daughter and now that she's all grown up, I just come here by myself."

Bones nodded.

They looked at the menu in silence for a few minutes before both putting it down at the same time.

"So? You wanted to talk to me about something." Brennan asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. It hit me a few hours ago. You know how we look alike?"

Brennan nodded and Bones suddenly felt stupid. They couldn't possibly be related. Could they?

"Well I was wondering if, maybe, it wasn't because we were related in some way."

She looked up at the older woman and gained confidence in the fact that she wasn't currently laughing in her face.

"I mean, Brennan is not a common last name and the fact that we look alike and that we have the same last time made me wonder if, maybe, we were related."

"It's possible." Brennan replied. "What were your parents' names?"

"My dad was called Matt and my mom was named Christine."

At the mention of her parents' names, Bones thought some kind of emotion had passed over Brennan's face but it had gone away so quickly, she wondered if she had even seen something.

Brennan cleared her throat and took a sip of the water the waiter had poured in her glass a few minutes before.

"Temperance? Have you ever heard of Jack and Leslie Brennan?"

Bones thought for a couple of seconds before answering no. She had never heard of these people.

"They were my parents. My dad had a brother he had never met. My dad was adopted at a young age and had gotten seperated from his brother. He didn't even know his name. My mom, Leslie, had a twin sister. Her name was Christine. When they were fifteen, my mom met my dad. They ran away together and moved to North Carolina and my mom never saw her family again. What's possible is that we could be cousins."

"But that's impossible. You are much older than I am."

"Yes, by what? Ten? Fifteen years? How old were your parents when you were born?"

"My dad was 33 and my mom was 31 when they had me."

"My mom had me when she was 16. This was one of the reasons why my parents ran away. They came to live with my dad's uncle until they were old enough to move out. They had my sister shortly after moving out on their own."

Bones nodded. This could make sense but there was still one more thing she wanted to ask.

"Do you remember your grandfather's name? On which side?"

"Your mom's side."

"I think his name was William."

Bones nodded once again. Her grandfather, the one who had taken her out of the foster system, had been named William.

The rest of the lunch had gone great. They had talked about multiple things. Bones had told her cousin about Booth and what had happened and Brennan had sympathized even though she had thought she had acted rather stupidely by leaving without telling him.

"You didn't even gave him the time to react. Poor guy. He must be going nuts back home."

Then Bones had told her about her conversation with Booth on the phone and Brennan hadn't been surprised when Bones told her that Booth had said he was going crazy.

"Call him as soon as you get to your hotel room, Temperance. And now that you've spoken to me, please go back to Washington. Go see him. Tell him you're sorry, tell him anything. Just talk to him."

And for the second time in two days, Bones was determined to take her cousin's advice.

So as she walked down the hall to her room, her heart raced faster and faster. A few more steps and she would be in her room, cellphone in hand, pressing Booth's speed-dial number.

She stopped in front of her door and looked through her purse. The door beside hers opened and a man stepped out. She looked up and she thought her heart had stopped beating.

"Booth?"

Booth turned around and never had a chance to react before he felt a body collide with his, arms wrapping around his neck and clutching to him like a lifeline.

Again, I'm really sorry for all the suspense. Didn't mean to frustrate anyone. Next chapter coming soon but until then, don't forget to review!