How is 2008 going for everyone at the moment? Okay, I promise I will start getting to Season 3's plot lines with the next chapter (about dang time, right? lol). As usual, please read and review. Thanks so much for reading, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: CSI: NY and its characters are owned by CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer Television. I only own the OC Morgan.

It was Morgan’s first official day as a trainee; and Mac had assigned her to assist Stella on the latter’s cases for the next two weeks.

That afternoon, Stella brought Morgan along to an apartment building on Lower Manhattan. An elderly woman had been found dead in her bedroom by a relative of hers, who had come by to visit. The smell of decomposing flesh that hit Morgan’s nostrils like a train as they walked down the hall towards the apartment told her that the deceased had probably met her demise a few days ago.

Stella threw a glance back at Morgan, who had covered her nose with her arm. “You’ll get used to it,” she said to the younger woman, and Morgan gave her a pained smile. “Here,” Stella handed her a small paper bag that she dug out from her crime scene kit. “Just in case.” Morgan received it appreciatively and folded it into her pocket.

The sweltering summer heat did no favors to the body; in fact it only accelerated the rate of decomposition. Stella and Morgan finally reached the apartment, as a uniformed officer came running out of the door and almost knocked Morgan down to the ground in his haste. “Sorry,” the young officer called out, and Morgan noticed his sickened look. Stella assured her that it was okay even if the same thing happened to her. It was normal for the rookies to get sick and throw up at their first crime scenes. Morgan nodded nervously. She stepped into the bedroom with Stella, and started taking photos while trying not to let the smell bother her, which was getting more unbearable by the second.

Finally, after sticking it out for nearly 15 minutes, Morgan could stand it no longer. She rushed out of the apartment and into the hallway, where she threw up into the paper bag that Stella had given her earlier.

“You alright?” A voice next to her said. It turned out to be another young officer. Morgan nodded slightly, and walked to the end of the hallway to deposit the paper bag into the trash chute. “I'm a rookie myself, just graduated from the academy a few months ago,” he called out to her. When she returned, the young officer was still standing at that same spot, and he was now looking at her intently. “Have we met before?” he asked. Morgan shook her head. He asked for her name, and Morgan held up her ID pass for him to see.

“Morgan Messer?” The young man said. “I knew I recognized you from somewhere.” He stared at her some more, and he obviously liked what he was seeing.

“Am I supposed to know who you are?”

The young man identified himself as Bobby Grant, which instantly rang a bell with Morgan. They used to be classmates back in middle school. She pursed her lips into a tight line, then busted out her most sincere-looking fake smile. “Of course, I remember you now.” He was someone that Morgan hoped never to see again, but as they say, fate works in mysterious ways. She sincerely hoped that this was the last time they would bump into each other at work, out in the field.

“We haven't seen each other since we were what, 12?” Grant said, and Morgan nodded. “You were the class bully,” she said simply.

Morgan wasn't really interested in speaking to him, because of that very reason.

“Yeah,” Grant laughed. “I used to make fun of the way you dressed, and for wearing your brother's old clothes.”

“And I used to stick up for the other kids you bullied, too,” Morgan said, while smiling her fake sincere smile. “You were the only girl who dared to do so,” Grant replied.

And I'd gladly do it again, Morgan thought to herself. “Remember anything else?” she asked, and Grant shook his head. He turned away to speak briefly on his radio just then, so he did not notice Morgan raising an eyebrow at his response. Grant turned back to her after he was done. “You were saying?”

“Never mind,” Morgan said. “How's that mother of yours?” She was trying hard not to spit out her words.

“Died last year, cancer.”

“I see, I'm so sorry to hear about that.” Morgan replied in a sincere, yet emotionless in a painfully-obvious way, which was completely lost on Bobby Grant, though. Your mother was a real bitch, Morgan said to herself. The uniformed officer that Morgan bumped into earlier approached Grant, and they stepped away to talk with each other. Before he did, though, Bobby Grant said, “Hey, maybe we should get together for a drink and catch up, huh?”

Just then, Stella emerged from the apartment to inform her that the Medical Examiner just called, she was stuck in traffic, and it was going to be another half hour before she would get there. “She?” Morgan said. “Yeah, Dr. Peyton Driscoll,” Stella replied. Peyton Driscoll was an ME for a number of years, before leaving to teach at Columbia University for a few years, and now she was back in the ME's office again.

“Who was that?” Stella said, noticing that Morgan was speaking with someone before she came out. “Friend of yours?”

Morgan shook her head. “Far from it. He's just a kid in my class back in middle school.”

Stella noted that she didn't sound too happy about seeing him again. “I'm not,” Morgan said plainly. “Dare I ask why?” Stella said.

“There was this...incident between him and me when we were 10 years old,” Morgan related.

Bobby Grant was notorious for bullying the kids in their class back then, including Morgan, who used to be the butt of his jokes because of the way she dressed. It wasn't her fault, really, because in between paying the rent and buying food and necessities, it wasn't like there was enough money left for Danny to buy Morgan new clothes whenever she wanted. So, she often had to wear old clothes given to her by kind neighbors, or hand-me-downs from Danny. Their little feud started when Morgan started standing up for the other kids whom he'd bullied.

One day during the kids' lunch break, Bobby Grant sic-ed his “posse” onto Morgan, who pinned her down on the playground floor, while he himself got out a pair of scissors (which he'd swiped from the classroom) and proceeded to cut off Morgan's ponytail, to get back at her. A furious and slightly traumatized Morgan managed to push the boys away, and went after Bobby. The first thing she did when she caught up to him was to give him a good kick in the crotch, and he immediately doubled over in pain. Young Morgan took the chance to push him down on the ground, sat on him and started to punch and scratch him; until a teacher saw what was happening and pulled Morgan off of the boy.

Stella let out a “whoosh” of air from her mouth. “Hmm. Danny's taught you well, it seems,” she said with a chuckle. “You bet,” Morgan said with a wink.

The teacher hauled both of them off to the principal's office. The kindly old man was shocked at the state the children were in, and rightly so. Morgan looked like a complete mess: her clothes were covered with dirt and grass, and her suddenly too-short hair was all uneven at the ends and sticking out at all possible angles. Bobby Grant on the other hand, wasn't looking too hot either. Morgan had bestowed upon him a black eye, a fat lip and a chipped tooth, as well as several scratches on his face. He was also missing a fistful of hair, which Morgan had yanked out by the root during the fight. Oh, and not to mention a serious bruise in his nether regions where Morgan had kicked him.

Obviously, the parents had to be called into school for a chat with the principal. In Morgan's case, it was Danny that they had to call, of course. So there Morgan was, standing in the principal's office with her dirty clothes and staring daggers at Bobby Grant, who didn't seem at all sorry for what he did. Mrs. Grant came to the school as soon as she could, and let out an overdramatic yelp upon seeing her son's injuries. The boy promptly launched into a sob story about how Morgan had started the fight, and that he only cut off her hair in self-defense. Needless to say, Bobby Grant was a spoilt child whose mother doted on him a little too excessively. “That's bullshit,” young Morgan spat out, and earning the mother's wrath, who went into a tirade against Morgan.

She didn't remember exactly what Bobby Grant's mother said about her, only that she didn't like what she was hearing. Something about being a wild child with serious disciplinary problems. Morgan was still busy with glaring fiercely at Bobby Grant to bother with what the woman was saying, until she made the mistake of dragging Danny into her tirade. “Shut up, you old hag, you don't know anything about my brother,” Morgan lashed out in Danny's defense, and mentioning the three dreaded words a woman never wanted to hear: 'you old hag'. The mother was so angered that she was about to raise a hand to strike Morgan, when Danny turned up at that very moment.

He stood between Morgan and the woman, and defended his little sister. Danny was also very shocked to see Morgan in her disheveled state, and demanded to know what in the world had happened. Bobby Grant's mother resumed her ranting, only she was directing her anger onto Danny instead of Morgan. “Lady, I know my sister. She is no troublemaker. And I also know for a fact that your son often picks on the other kids in class,” Danny shot back at her.

“The little jerk was hiding behind his Mommy Dearest the entire time,” Morgan spat out. “Coward.”

The principal finally managed to get a word in, and persuaded both parental units to stop arguing for a moment and let Morgan tell her side of the story, which was the God's honest truth, as compared to the rubbish that Bobby Grant had passed off for the truth. His story had more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. Morgan related the incident as it had really happened, but Bobby Grant's mother would have none of it, and accused the young girl of being a liar. The teacher (to her credit) tried to defend Morgan by reiterating Danny's earlier statement that Bobby Grant was known to bully the other kids; and again the mother chose to believe that her son was the wholly innocent party.

Eventually, Morgan was given two weeks' detention (not because she started the fight, but rather, because she didn't walk away from it). Also, at the insistence of Bobby Grant's mother, she was made to talk to the school counselor twice a week for a month, so that she could get help with “curbing her violent tendencies”. Bobby Grant, on the other hand, got off fairly lightly. His mother had promised the principal that she would discipline on her own at home, and the old man had agreed to it. The woman also requested that Morgan be transferred into another class, away from her son. “Good!” Young Morgan had exclaimed when that request was made.

“I found out a couple of years later that his father donated money to the school regularly,” Morgan said to Stella, who nodded understandingly. And, as a result of that incident, Morgan never grew her hair long again – not until her sophomore year in high school. “I can't believe he not only forgot about what happened, he was also trying to ask me out just a moment ago,” Morgan said, feeling very much annoyed.

XXX

Dr. Peyton Driscoll still hadn't arrived after a half hour after she was supposed to arrive, while Stella and Morgan were almost done with processing the tiny apartment – she was already getting used to the smell – not that there was much to process in the first place. All signs pointed to a natural cause of death – she probably died in her sleep – and no foul play. As if on cue, Stella's Palm Treo beeped; they had to go to another crime scene, so they hurriedly packed their things and got ready to leave. Before they left, however, Stella stuck Bobby Grant with the task of watching the apartment (and the body) until Dr. Driscoll arrived. He took a step into the apartment for the first time (he was outside, in the hallway the entire time before that), and Morgan could see the color of his face change immediately, and was trying very hard to suppress the urge to mock him.

“Don't worry,” Morgan said smugly. “It gets worse before it gets better.”

The two women walked out of the apartment, smiling to themselves as soon as they were in the hallway of the building. “Did you see the look on his face?” Morgan laughed.

“I thought a little revenge was in order,” Stella replied.

“And it was very sweet, indeed,” Morgan said.