Disclaimer: Mmmm….fresh chocolate chip cookies…..trade you a cookie for Horatio Caine….

A/N: It's the little things that are important to me when I write. It seems that canon has changed and I am now slightly alt-universe, following Manhattan Manhunt and Nailed (and my own insistence that Calleigh stay in ballistics). The original bios, which CBS(dot)com has taken down, stated Horatio grew-up in Miami during the 1960s and Ms. Caine, a community activist, was murdered in Miami. It was his mother's murder that propelled Horatio toward police work and later into crime scene investigation – with a stint in bomb squad, which is still canon. I realize canon now has Ms. Caine killed in New York, especially since the writers now have Horatio living and starting his career in New York City. Being the good writer of the occasional fanfic, I need to tell you I am staying with the original bio for this story and the third one I'm sketching. I doubt this will make a major difference in my stories or the characters at a later time, but it's only fair to let you know this now. Personally, I think Horatio's character makes more sense as a Miami-born and –raised cop. I just can't see him as a New York cop and I have known and worked with a few from Western New York. (All good people, by-the-way.)

Friday finally arrived. Horatio stood beside CSI1, leaning against the Hummer, scanning the crowd of children for his niece. Madison was a quick child; after the scene a week earlier with her grandmother, she had been nervous. No matter how Suzie or Horatio tried to reassure Madison, she become clingy, which was unlike her, and worried. It had been a bad idea to allow Mrs. Barnam to meet Madison, Horatio could see now.

Horatio had no fondness for that woman. He had composed letter after letter in his head to have couriered to Raymond about this business but in the end decided there was nothing his "dead" brother could do from where he was. Raymond would hear of this only after it was settled and Louise Barnam was back in Indiana.

The knot of children burst through the doors for a weekend of freedom. They chattered loudly, veering in groups and singles toward the cars lined up in front of St. Anne's. Horatio's eyes hunted through the sea of plaid uniforms until they rested on a group of kindergarten girls, holding hands and skipping. Madison's red-head bobbed up and down and she giggled with her friends.

He held up his arm for a moment until he caught her eye. Madison waved happily back to him and turned to hug one of her friends. With a bounce she turned and ran to her uncle.

Horatio caught her easily in his arms, picking the child up in a twirl. Madison laughed again and he squeeze her tightly, pressing his cheek against hers. With a flourish, he returned the giggling kindergartener to the ground and dropped to one knee to be at her eye-level.

"And how," he asked, "was school today, sweetheart?"

Madison bounced on the balls of her feet. "Did you know some dinosaurs could fly?" she asked him, spreading her arms out like wings. "Like great big birds?"

Horatio chuckled at her imitation. "I've heard something like that," he told her. "Maybe you can tell me about it on our way to CSI?"

Madison nodded happily and followed Horatio to the back door of the Hummer. He opened the door for her to climb in. Madison reached for the seatbelt and he helped her to fasten it across her lap.

Madison told Horatio all about the flying dinosaurs, which somehow looked like egrets with scales. Horatio watched traffic with occasional glances into the backseat. When she ran out of descriptions, he saw her take a picture book from her backpack and start leafing through pages.

Horatio's cellphone buzzed and he answered it with one hand. Madison looked up from her book and leaned forward.

"Horatio," he said, noting her interest.

"Hey, H," Eric greeted. "We got a call out at Biscayne Boulevard and North East 12 Street. Patrol thinks it was an exchange gone bad."

"Okay, Eric," Horatio said, glancing again at Madison in the backseat. "Can you handle this and catch up with me back at the lab?"

"Yeah," Eric said. "But I think you want to stop by, though. It's not drugs and it has the hallmarks of Mal Noche."

Mal Noche. Horatio squinted ahead. That changed things. "I'll be there, Eric," he said. "Do we have a DB?"

"No," Eric said to Horatio's relief. "Paramedics are transporting the victim now. Ryan is going with them for trace."

Horatio nodded to himself. "Good. I'll be there in five." He clicked off and raised his head to better see Madison in the mirror. "Madison, do you think you can handle a little adventure this afternoon?"

Madison grinned and bobbed her head.

"Good, because I have to go to a crime scene for a few minutes," he told her. "And I need you to be very good when we get there. You have to do exactly what I tell you to do while we're there, okay?"

"Okay," Madison told him. "Can I be a CSI, too? Like you and Mr. Ryan?"

Horatio's lips moved in a slight smile, thinking of a way to keep his niece out of trouble. "Yes, you can be," he said. "Do you have a notebook in that bag of yours?"

Madison dove into her bookbag, hunting for a notebook. She came out, frowning and shaking her head.

"No matter," Horatio said, pausing at a stop light. He reached over and opened the glove compartment in the Hummer, pulling a small notepad out. He turned around and handed it to Madison before the light changed to green. "There you go," he said. "When we get to the scene, your job is to write down everything you see. Use all the words you know and draw pictures if you don't know the words."

Madison wrinkled her forehead in concern. "Do CSIs do that? I thought you got to play with the neat toys."

Horatio guided the Hummer down Biscayne Boulevard. "Yep, CSIs do that," he explained. "It's the most important thing we do. We write down everything we see so we can figure out what happened."

Madison grinned again. "I can do that," she told him excitedly.

A minute later CSI1 pulled beside CSI2, driven by Eric Delko. Eric was already out of his Hummer and examining the scene. Horatio parked the Hummer and stepped out, walking to the back of the passenger's side to let Madison out. She held her police notepad tightly in one hand and a pencil on the other, her eyes round with excitement. Horatio took the hand that held the pencil and walked with her toward Det. Frank Tripp.

"Oh, hell, Horatio," Frank said seeing him approach with a five-year-old. "What's she doing here? This is a crime scene."

"I'm aware of that, Frank," Horatio said. "We were on our way back to CSI from her school when I got the call out. Since I can't leave a child in the Hummer, Madison has promised to do as she's told."

Frank looked doubtful as to Madison's ability to behave. "If you say so," Frank replied. "But I don't see this as a good idea."

Horatio nodded. "I don't plan on it happening again, Frank. Now, what have we got?"

Madison listened as Det. Tripp said people had seen someone running away from the place they were standing after hearing gunshots. Uncle Horatio asked him questions about who had heard the gunshots and who was hurt by them. Madison wrote down there were five police officers, plus Uncle Horatio and Det. Tripp, there was a red puddle on the ground, there were long black streaks on the cement with black stuff in a puddle between the streaks. She wrote down she saw footprints in the sand at the side of the road.

She hopped on one foot and then followed Uncle Horatio as he walked over to the footprints. When he crouched down to pick up a shiny metal tube, she copied him, writing down "shiny" "yellow" and drawing a little picture of the tube.

"What's that?" she asked as he examined the tube.

Horatio made a face and held it out for Madison to see better. "This is a shell casing," he said. "It came from the bullet in the bad guy's gun."

"Oh." Madison nodded. She drew another stick-figure picture of where they stood, putting a big "X" on the stop where they found the casing. "Where's the bullet?"

Horatio stood up, putting the casing in a plastic bag and taping it shut with red tap that had black writing on it. She wrote "Unkle Horasheoo put in bag. Red." in her notebook and followed him back to the Hummer. "Where's the bullet?"

"Whoever left this casing, shot another person," Horatio said. "And the bullet is still inside that person's body. The doctors are going to take it out of him."

"But he'll be okay, right?" Madison asked, following Horatio back to the Hummer.

Horatio smiled at her concern. "I hope so."

"Sister Fran says when someone is hurt we should say a prayer and ask God to make them better," Madison said. "Should I do that?"

Horatio blinked in surprise at her question. He leaned down to kiss the top of Madison's head. "Yes, sweetheart," he said. "I think that would be a good idea." He opened the back door of the Hummer. "You climb in and say your prayer. I need to say something to Det. Tripp and them we'll go back to CSI."

Madison climbed into the backseat and struggled with the seatbelt while Horatio walked over to Frank. He left the door open so she could see the two men talking for a moment before Horatio returned.

"Please, God," Madison whispered. "Make the person who got hurt better. And help Uncle Horatio to figure out why someone would want to hurt another person like that."

Madison turned the pages in her notebook and looked at the words and pictures she had drawn there. She added, "And I want to be a real CSI, too. Just like Uncle Horatio. Okay, God?"

--LMM --

They arrived back at the crime lab, Madison proudly showing her notebook to Paula before heading into the lab itself. Ryan met them just inside the lab doors, offering a bagged bullet to Horatio.

"Got it," he said, handing the bullet over and rocking on his heels. "I was just about to take it down to Calleigh."

Horatio examined the bullet with a slight frown. "Good work, Wolfe," he said.

Madison stood on tip-toe. "Can I see?"

The men exchanged glances, having momentarily forgotten her. Horatio lowered the bag for Madison to see the bullet.

"What do you notice?" he asked her.

Madison tilted her head, thinking. "It's small," she said, biting at her bottom lip. "And it has little lines on it."

"Good," Horatio said with approval. "Those little lines are going to help us find out who the bullet originally belonged to."

Madison's eyes got a little bigger. "Really? How?"

"Like fingerprints," Ryan supplied. Madison looked from Horatio to Ryan. "Just like everyone has different fingerprints, each gun makes different marks on the bullets."

Madison looked at her left hand, considering what Ryan had said. "And the little lines tell you who hurt that man?"

"When we match them up with a record we have on file, they do," Horatio said. He smiled, an idea forming. "How about, how about we set you up to match some of the lines on different bullets? Would you like to do that?"

Ryan folded his arms and faced his supervisor. "Horatio, you aren't going to let her use the comparison microscope, are you? I'm going to need that for this case."

"No, Ryan," Horatio said. "I was thinking the computer tutorial. If you're not using that terminal?"

Ryan pressed his lips together. It seemed the kid was going to be left in his lab again. Madison bounced hopefully.

"Can I take more notes?" she asked eagerly.

"Yeah, sure," Ryan said, releasing a deep sigh. "Just, don't touch anything you're not supposed to touch."

"Okay," Madison promised.

Horatio chuckled. "Good. Let's get you set up so Mr. Wolf can get to his work."

Following Horatio and Madison back to the trace lab, Ryan muttered under his breath, "How did I end up in kindergarten again?"

Horatio spent five minutes with Madison before going to see Calleigh, loading the ballistics identification tutorial and showing her how to work the program with the mouse. She promised once more not to touch anything other than her computer and to go straight to Horatio's office if she was done with the program. Ryan opened his kit and sorted the evidence he had collected at the hospital; the clothes worn by the victim when he was shot, fragments collected from outside the wound, possibly from some sort of silencer, and DNA swabs for Valera to process. He spread out the clothes and started to lift trace from the front of the shirt.

Madison knelt on the chair beside the workstation, intent on the task on the screen. One side of the screen showed a copper-colored bullet with striations – as Uncle Horatio had called the little lines – and the other side had small pictures of other bullets. Madison clicked and dragged on each picture to enlarge it, trying to match the lines in the two pictures. She careful jotted down the numbers of each sample picture and then crossed them off when the pictures didn't match. After the fifth one she clapped her hands, matching the two bullets together. She wrote that down, too, while the tutorial loaded another set of pictures for her to work on.

"Having fun, Miss Keaton?" Ryan asked over his shoulder.

"Uh-huh," Madison said, eyes still on the screen. "This is really cool."

He had to agree with her.

"Do you think you want to be a CSI when you grow up?" he asked, snipping out a portion of the shirt to run through the microspectophotometer.

Madison matched up another set of striations. The tutorial loaded another set, this time more difficult than the last set.

"Yes," she said happily. "I wanna know how things happen, too."