A/N Garret, Garret, Garret, when are you going to learn that you shouldn't pick fights with everyone?

Sometimes there's nothing to feel
Sometimes there's nothing to hold
Sometimes there's no time to run away
Sometimes you just feel so old
The times it hurts when you cry
The times it hurts just to breathe...
...Fight fight fight, Just push it away
Fight fight fight, Just push it until it breaks
Fight fight fight, don't cry at the pain
Fight fight fight, or watch yourself burn again

The Cure-Fight

"I think you've spent far too much time with me." She said with a grin, clinking glasses as she sprawled out on the couch in his office. He grinned back and shrugged.

"Really?" He asked, taking a sip.

"Really. You keep talking all the risks." He chuckled and gave her a light pat to get her to slide over and give him some room to sit.

"You still take them too." She shrugged.

"It's just you're the one going off chasing the bad guys, that was my job, you always used to tell me off for doing that."

"Guess I can't complain when you do it anymore." He kicked his feet up on the table in front of him, getting comfortable.

"Yeah. Hello pot? This is kettle..." He grinned.

"Yeah." He agreed as she leaned against him, curling against his side. He pulled her close, enjoying the feel of a warm body against him. It'd been far too long since he had felt human contact. Maybe Howard was right, he should find a girlfriend.

But he didn't want to have to go through the whole dating thing. Dating meant getting to know a total stranger. What he wanted was hot wild sex without any emotional involvement. He hated the whole "getting to know you part" where he had to watch everything he said and did.

He didn't want to have to worry about waking up from a nightmare and having to explain to someone what had happened. He hated having to sidestep around everything that was him until he was sure that they liked him back, be willing to put up with him. That there were grounds for things becoming more than a quick and passionate relationship.

If he wanted quick and passionate he'd go the one-night-stand route. Which was something that was definitely sounding more and more appealing. Find some nice beautiful woman, drag her home for the night, get his rocks off, forget about it afterwards, something nice for the night, that's all it would be.

"You haven't been around much." She snapped him back to reality. "You're either working late or well, working. You complain about me not sleeping?" He grinned sheepishly.

"I sleep." He said, taking a large gulp to drain the glass before pouring another one.

"Really?" She questioned and he nodded. He did sleep. Not very well, but he did. They were interrupted from their little heart-to-heart by the phone ringing loudly. He got up grudgingly and answered it, nodding and jotting down what he was being told.

"I've got a pickup." He said, hanging up the phone and grabbing the address, slipping on his coat to give him something of a layer for the October weather. It hadn't gotten too bad yet, but it was too cold to go out with just his shirt and sport coat.

"You want me to go with you?" She asked and he shook his head. He downed the rest of his glass and headed out the door, down to the van.

As he drove through the city, the hair on his neck was standing on end. He never liked this part of the city. It was the ghetto, in the truest sense of the word. He saw people that no person should ever see, ghostly thin, scary. It sent a shudder down his spine to realize that his daughter had only been a half-step away from this.

He pulled up in front of a run down housing project and walked inside, looking for the apartment he wanted. He knocked twice on the door, finding it to swing inwards when he did so. The deceased was lying down in her bed, a little old lady who had passed calmly in her sleep. She'd look like she was still asleep if it wasn't for the pale ashy color that was across her skin.

He rolled her onto the gurney and had just started heading out when a large man stepped out and looked at the body on the gurney. "Hey, what are you doing?" The man asked.

"I'm taking her back to the morgue to determine cause of death and wait for her next of kin." He said matter-of-factly.

"She ain't got no kin, we were going to bury her, she's been like a mother to us all." There was something in him that made him want to pick a fight. It wasn't a bright move, but between the two glasses of scotch that he had and the nagging voice in the back of his head, he wanted to punch something, and this man looked like a rather nice sized target.

"Well, if she has no kin, she'll be buried in a potters field."

"An unmarked grave. No way man." The other man had to be twice his size, at least six feet tall, and built like he could play for the Patriots. But something told him that he could take this guy.

"Yes way man." He said, keeping on going.

"C'mon, we can take her, save you the trouble. You can't take her."

"Make me." He said. He had been expecting the blow, but it still caught him slightly off guard. He swung back catching the other man in the jaw. The next blow was to his gut and he doubled over, the wind knocked out of him. One more blow came to his head, and he caught a glint of metal.

He barely felt it as the knife went in, the last thing he could remember was a hard blow to his skull as he collapsed against the wall.