A/N: thank you kindly for your nice reviews, as it was much appriciated, and once again, thank you for your patience.

Chapter 38

A few days had passed since Madigan had had her unusual dream and girl-gab session with Alexx and Calleigh. It was a session that had left her with a heck of a hangover, something she was fortunate she didn't have to explain the next day since it was technically her day off. Alexx and Calleigh, on the other hand, while they had managed to remain sober, they had been, from what she gathered, a bit grumpy the next day.

Today she'd had a bit of fun, wrestling with some of the guys in the gym. It had all been good fun, or at least that's what she thought. Then she had tangled with a brawny dark-haired guy with a bad attitude by the name of Gary. He hadn't taken kindly to the fact that she had thrown him around, or the fact that she was from New York, making her a 'Yankee.' Aaron, a tall, Jamaican guy whom she got along with pretty well, he'd mentioned that Gary was from one of the wealthier families and they were 'pure' Southern boys who had fought in the Civil War. Anyone not from Miami or one of the Southern states was not good enough for him, and the fact that Madigan had teased him with her playing, well, that hadn't gone down too well, by the looks of it.

But Madigan didn't really care. After all, Gary was a bully, and if he couldn't handle a bit of teasing then he wasn't worth her time. Besides, she had more important things to do. She was heading for the bus stop to catch a bus that would take her to the crime lab, where Alexx was, and where she would be giving the medical examiner a hand.

As she tugged her newsboy cap over her hair and was reaching for her signet ring, someone called out to her. She turned and groaned. It was Gary and he looked none-too-happy with her.

"What do you want, Gary?" she called back, not stopping. Detect, Defuse, Defend, she told herself, and everything about Gary said he was itching for a fight. Well, she was not about to give him one, unless, of course, he really pushed for it.

"Where the hell do you get off showing off like that?" he demanded, getting in her face.

"What? You can't take a joke?" she asked, taking two steps back to allow for room and instinctively spreading her feet for balance.

"Humiliating me was no joke," he shot back.

"Oh, for Christ sakes, Gar, we were fooling around. I simply proved that you don't need to be all brawn to win a fight and a lot of women don't have the advantage of brawn so I simply showed them how to use their brain. Not my fault your ego is so big," Madigan shot back. "Good grief, some people are just so touchy." And she moved around him, intending to end the confrontation right there and then.

As Madigan turned to walk away, she felt someone grab her arm and she reacted instinctively, lashing out and up with her opposite elbow. The strike caught Gary square in the mouth, splitting his lip and causing him to bellow in anger and pain.

"You bitch!" he snarled, holding his mouth. "I'm going to teach you a lesson you'll never forget!"

Madigan sighed heavily. "Look, I really don't want to fight. I have nothing against you and I'd rather we just walked away," she said, moving out of Gary's reach.

A nasty gleam came to Gary's eyes and he said, "That's what you think, bitch." And he charged. He expected a lot of things but what he didn't expect was for his face to meet a lamppost as Madigan used his momentum against him by grabbing his arm and planting her hand between his shoulder blades and forcibly guiding him towards the lamppost. The impact was hard enough for him to see stars and anger him even further.

He spun around to face Madigan and she just stood there, hands on her hips, bag on the ground.

"You can walk away from this, you know? There's really no need to continue this," she said. "Of course, I should warn you that should you persist in continuing this rather stupid demonstration of your brawn, things are going to get worse and a lot more painful."

"A little Yankee bitch like you is not going to get the better of me," he snarled. And with that, he suddenly charged again, fist raised.

She neatly sidestepped, lashed out with one foot and kicked him hard in his upper left thigh. He dropped to his knee instantly as pain radiated through his leg. Due to the fact that he was wearing shorts, the asphalt bit painfully in to his knee.

Gary looked up in time to see her right fist heading straight for his face. Pain exploded in his face as her fist struck his zygomatic bone, otherwise known as his cheekbone. When he could finally open his eyes again, Madigan had backed off. There was a nasty gleam in her eyes.

"That the best you got, little boy? Hmmm? You're not looking so big and tough now," she taunted. Madigan didn't know why she was taunting him, except she could feel rage building in her and there was quite a lot of it. If Gary wanted to fight, fine, she'd give him a fight he'd never forget. Not only that, but she'd make damn sure he never did it again. As far as she was concerned, it was his own damn fault for trying to pick a fight with her.

Somehow Gary managed to get himself up off the ground. If looks could kill, she was certain she'd be a crispy critter by now but hey, she was feeling the same way towards him right now so they were even.

"C'mon, little boy. Show me whatcha got. Prove to me you can take down a little Yankee girl like me," she taunted.

She let him get close enough to try and take a swing at her with his left arm, which she neatly blocked and followed up with a vicious punch to his left brachial radial nerve, which was located just below the collar bone. Gary yelled in pain as his left arm promptly went numb. Seeing red, he tried to take a swing at her with his right arm only to have her duck, come around, kick him in the inside of his right thigh which caused him to hit the ground again, and followed up with two vicious punches to the backs of his shoulders, where his brachial plexus nerves were located. Then she spun around again and this time she lashed out with an elbow strike straight to his face. There was a nasty crunching noise as his nose broke under the impact.

By now Gary was on the ground, in a great deal of pain. Blood poured down his face from his broken nose and split lip. His legs were numb, as were both his arms, and his knees stung. He honestly didn't know which part of him hurt the most.

He managed to look up at Madigan, and when he did, a pair of icy cold blue eyes stared down at him.

"This fight is over. Come after me again and I'll kick your ass all over again," she said coldly. And with that, she picked up her bag and proceeded to walk away.

Rage flowed through him, hot and dangerously, fueling him. Gary didn't know how he did it, but suddenly he found himself getting up off the ground, yelling, and charging towards Madigan.

She heard him coming, naturally, and spun around. Pain exploded when her foot caught him in his stomach. Air exploded from him in a rush and then the pain came.

Kidney punch to the back, kick to the nuts, upper cut to the face followed by a left cross, and then darkness came as her left knee met his face.

Breathing hard, Madigan glared at her tormentor and, fueled by adrenaline and anger, didn't really hear her name being called. It wasn't until someone grabbed her arm and she nearly planted her elbow in Horatio's concerned face did she realize a crowd had gathered.

"Madigan, easy!" Horatio said. "Easy," he soothed.

Horatio had been heading towards the gym to offer Madigan a lift to the lab when he'd spotted the trouble in the parking lot. He had gotten out of the Hummer in time to see the big burly guy try and attack Madigan but had been too far away to do anything. He had then watched in a combination of horror and fascination as the young woman brutally and effectively took down the much bigger man. It was then that he had grabbed her and nearly gotten hit for his efforts, realizing that she was still running on adrenaline-fueled fight instincts. It was those same instincts that had stopped her strike before it had connected with his face.

"The fight's over, Madigan," he said gently, watching as the ice in her eyes melted. "You've won."

"Damn, girl!" came a familiar Jamaican male voice. "You got some temper!"

Madigan smiled automatically as she looked around and noticed several members of the gym, including Aaron, had joined her. Two guys were helping a disoriented and bleeding Gary to his feet.

"I am so not gonna piss you off," Aaron continued as he joined her and Horatio.

"Get him out of here and to a hospital to have him looked at," Horatio said to the two guys helping Gary. They nodded and began to help Gary away.

"He might try to have her charged with assault," Aaron cautioned.

Horatio smiled coldly and said, "That's fine but remind him that a cop saw him start the fight. If he tries to have Madigan charged, I'll slap him with a charge of attempted aggravated assault."

"And we saw him too," said a by-stander, a woman wearing jeans and a t-shirt with the gym logo on it. "She was wrestling with him earlier today and the idiot just could not take a joke. I even heard him muttering things about getting even with her."

"Yeah, just because she chose brain over brawn and because she's a Yankee, which really pissed him off," said the woman's companion, a man in street clothes.

"Hey Maddy!" came Eddie's cheerful voice as he bounded over to her and put his arm around her. "A woman who can actually stand her ground! That's my kind of girl!" he teased. Eddie was an instructor at the gym and was happily married but had a look-don't-touch policy with his wife. The rest of the staff loved to tease him about it, but the truth was, Eddie was a man very much in love with his wife.

"Yeah, until your wife finds out," Madigan teased back.

"Hey, a guy can dream!" Eddie shot back easily. He suddenly gave a very girly-like yelp when Madigan tickled his ribs, making him jump.

"Except when you screech like that," Madigan said easily, grinning, causing a round of chuckles from the assembled group. Now that she was coming down from her rush, she was beginning to feel tired. Her fists were starting to smart as well and for some odd reason she wanted nothing more than to bawl her eyes out but she wanted to do it in private. Horatio noticed this.

"Come on, Madigan, let's go," he said gently, leading her towards the Hummer.

"Willingly, especially if where you're leading me to has coffee," she quipped.

"I think that can be arranged," he said, smiling.

As they drove through Miami, Horatio watched Madigan out of the corner of his eye. She looked like she was thinking hard.

"Madigan, are you okay?" he asked.

She sighed heavily. "I guess so. I was just… I was so angry at Gary that… that I wonder if it really was Gary I was angry at."

"Elliot, maybe?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. I just know that I've been angry before but… never… never quite like that. I'm not even sure where the anger came from."

"Well, I have learned that we as human beings tend to be funny creatures," he said. "In reacting to a tragedy, we are not predictable. Why we feel such emotions as anger, sadness, guilt, even, we don't know. There is no way to predict how we will react during the situation or even after the situation is over. We have a pretty good idea but no way to really predict. The only good thing is that once we identify what's going on, then, and only then, can we really figure out what to do."

"Dreams are funny things too," she said quietly, remembering the figments of her dream.

"They are indeed," he said, wondering where she was going with this but sensed that it was important.

She was quiet for a moment and then she spoke. "I spoke to Speed a few nights ago, the night of that gab-session with Alexx and Calleigh. I remember being so angry at Elliot and getting pretty drunk, which is a first for me." Horatio smiled. "And I remember talking to Speed. He said I had to let go of my anger, let go of Elliot, or I wouldn't be able to move on."

"And he was right."

"I know. It just hasn't been easy," she admitted.

"And it's not going to be easy," he said. "Believe me, I know. You take it one day at a time and try to channel that rage in to something positive. It's not easy but I've found that having friends and family helps."

"You sound like a veteran," she quipped.

He smiled tightly and said, "I've had my fair share of situations I'd rather forget about and a lot of rage as a result. My friends and family have helped me channel my anger towards something positive."

"Probably why you do your job so well," she said. "Alexx says when you get angry you get more determined."

"I do. It's not always easy but you can do it. Don't hesitate to turn to your family and friends, Madigan; that's what they're there for, especially your brother. He cares, you know."

"Yeah, I know. God knows I haven't been exactly easy on his nerves lately. I just didn't know how to tell him what was going through me, how confused and mixed up I felt. He already had so much on his plate without having to worry about his baby sister being very mixed up because her co-worker decided to put a bullet in to his brain," she confessed.

He smiled and said, "That, Madigan, that is what family is for. We worry, we fuss, and we look out for each other, and we, we wouldn't have it any other way."