At the end of the season finale, Nick joked to Ray about being able to play dead good. But what if he wasn't playing dead? Our lives are based on the choices we make, and for Nick, this choice will decide everything for him.

I don't own CSI and got the idea from the book The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. I don't own that either.

In retrospect, yelling out to someone after hearing gunshots wasn't the brightest thing Nick Stokes had ever done. Actually, it was very high up there with being one of the stupidest things he had ever done. He was merely trying to find out some information from the officer who had gone back to check on Charlie, but had instead alerted the suspect that he was coming back to find out for himself by shouting out. But maybe it didn't even make that big of a difference. Jekyll knew Nick and Langston were both there, that was no secret. And what did Jekyll expect to happen after shooting the officer? Gunshots aren't something that's ignored, especially by CSIs.
Another thing that surprised Nick was that he had been off the mark when he had shot at Jekyll. Nick was always a very good shot, and he chalked it up to the element of surprise and nerves that made him miss and, as a result, being put in the his current situation.

For whatever reason, Nick thought that being shot would hurt less than it did. He obviously knew that it would be painful, but he didn't think it would be anything like this. The force of the shot knocked him off his feet onto his back. His shoulder blades stung instantly when they impacted the hard floor, but did very little to cushion the following blow his head took. He became instantly dizzy and lightheaded, both from his bleeding wound and from hitting his head. He felt his chest begin to tighten, causing him more discomfort. He tried to yell out to Ray, but there wasn't enough air in his lungs to do so.

The last thing Nick thought about before he passed out was how stupid it was for them to give this guy the courtesy of giving him a nickname like Dr. Jekyll.

Nick opened his eyes slowly, afraid of what he was going to see. He expected to be on an operating table in a dungeon somewhere, strapped down with barbed wire and staring down at his heart beating out of his sliced open chest. When all he could see was a clear blue sky, Nick should have be relieved, but was even more worried now. His mind jumped to the conclusion that Jekyll had brought him out to the desert and left him to bleed to death. The sun was high overhead, blinding Nick as he looked up. He lifted his left hand to shade his eyes, and upon doing so realized that his shoulder didn't hurt where he had been shot.

Guessing by where the sun was, Nick assumed it was noon time. He had been shot last night. Shouldn't he have bled to death by now?

Nick sat up slowly and dropped his hand back down to his side. He looked down at his shoulder, and couldn't understand what he was seeing. His black deparment issue CSI vest was gone. He was still wearing the same blue button up shirt he had had on last night, and his wound was still there and very visible. But it wasn't bleeding. It should have been, but it wasn't. Nick reached up with his right hand and touched the area around the wound carefully, but it didn't hurt. He raised his left arm above his head and moved his shoulder around in circles, but still no pain.

"It's not going to hurt for a little while."

The soft, delicate voice came out of nowhere, making Nick jump. He looked up quickly, but nothing was in front of him. He whipped his head around in all directions and craned his neck to see where the voice had come from, but saw no evidence of anyone else out there with him. And for the first time, Nick saw where he actually was.

His conclusion of being in the desert was wrong. He was sitting in a field of perfect green grass that smelled freshly cut and that stretched on for what looked like forever. The sky was a deep, brilliant blue with no clouds in sight and was being lit up gorgeously by the sun. The sun was burning bright overhead, right down onto Nick, but he couldn't feel its heat. In fact, he couldn't feel anything. No breeze, no warmth from the sun, not even the grass beneath him. He wasn't hot or cold. As far as he could tell, he wasn't anything.

Nick looked down as he ran his hands over his legs and up his chest. He could feel himself. He could feel that was real, which was relieving. He ran his right hand through his short hair, and it felt softer than anything he had ever felt before. The confusion Nick was feeling outweighed his feelings of fear and anxiety, which is what was causing him to just sit there and wait rather than get up and run away.

"Are you ready to go?"

The voice came back, and even though it was a female voice that was very light and gentle, it still scared Nick. A few seconds after the voice had spoken again, he saw a bright, white light coming towards him. Fast. He instinctively jumped to his feet, ready to run as soon as he decided it was necessary. Just as the light was getting close enough to pose a danger and almost forcing Nick to bolt, the light faded into the shape of a young girl. Nick's fear immediately melted away, and he felt rooted to the spot.

"We have to get going, you have a lot you have to do," the little girl said.

Nick shook his head slowly. "Who are you? Where am I? What do I have to do? What the hell is going on?"

The little girl giggled. "I should have known you were going to have so many questions Nick. That's what makes you a good CSI."

"How do you know who I am?"

The little girl couldn't stop giggling. "That's my job silly. My job is to meet you and explain the rules to you so that you don't mess up. You have to trust me on this one, okay?"

Nick shook his head again. "Trust you on what?"

The little girl extended her hand to Nick and smiled sweetly. "Just come with me, okay? You're going to be late. You don't have that much time ya know. These things have a time limit. The longer it takes, the harder it is to go back."

"Go back where?" Nick asked.

"I'll explain it all to you when we get out of here. You'll know everything you want to know if you come with me, I promise."

Without anymore hesitation, Nick reached out and grabbed the little girls hand. It was warm and small against his cold palm, but he didn't have much time to think about much else before a huge burst of light washed over them quickly. Nick shut his eyes against the blinding light and felt his heart racing in his chest. He felt the little girl pull her hand from his and begin giggling again, so Nick quicky opened his eyes and looked around him.

He was standing with the girl on a beach, facing the ocean. The sun was setting in front of them, making the vast ocean in front of them look like it was on fire. Nick stared at the sun, mesmerized by it's beauty. He watched it side by side with the little girl for a very long time before he spoke.

"It's not moving," he said at last. "Why doesn't it move?"

"She doesn't want it to," the little girl answered as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Nick turned and looked at her, opening his mouth to ask who 'she' was. Before he could, the little girl continued. "This is exactly what she wants. A beautiful, empty beach that's perfectly clean where the sun is always setting. Nothing is as beautiful as a beach at sunset."

Nick looked past the little girl and saw that the beach went on and on until it met with the orange and red sky. He turned the other way and saw that it did the same exact thing. He once again had no idea where he was, never mind how he had gotten there or what he was doing there.

"Who are you?" he asked the little girl again.

She shrugged simply. "I don't know. I don't have a name."

"Why not?"

"I died before I could be named," she answered quietly, still staring out at the sun.

"Oh," Nick managed, unsure of what else to say. "I'm sorry. What happened?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I just showed up at the meadow where you just were and was told that this is my job. To help people, like you. Well, I help the people who help the people like you."

Nick swallowed the lump that was growing in his throat. "Am I dead?"

She shook her head. "No, not yet."

"So I'm going to die?"

She shook her head again. "No, not yet."

Nick couldn't take his eyes off of the little girl. Her dark brown eyes were transfixed on the sun. She never blinked, not even when the wind from the ocean blew her brown hair into her eyes. Her sundress was bright yellow and danced around her in the wind. Her pale little face seemed to be always smiling, even if her lips weren't.

"You get the choose," she added when Nick didn't reply. "It's not going to be easy, remember that. Don't come crying to me when it's not easy."

"When what isn't easy?" Nick inquired.

"Choosing."

"Choosing what?"

The little girl finally turned and looked up at Nick. "Whether to go back or not."

"To go back to..." Nick trailed off, not entirely sure where he could go back to because he didn't know where he was.

"To the restaurant. Where you were shot," the little girl said knowledgeably. "At the end, you get to choose if you go back or stay."

"At the end of what?"

The little girl smiled. "Your lessons."

Nick frowned. "What lessons?"

The little girl sat down in the sand, crossing her legs and plopping her hands in her lap. She looked up at Nick, inviting him to do the same. When he did, she began tracing her fingers through the sand in between them.

"I died before my mommy and daddy ever got to see me," she explained. "I died before I even got to take a breath. So, I got to choose to do this or to do nothing. Nobody got to help me, so I get to help people. Like you."

Nick nodded slowly. "How long have you been doing this?"

She shrugged. "I dunno, time doesn't work here like it normally does. Back at the restaurant, time is frozen. You're on the floor, and Ray's behind the table with Papa and Charlie's behind the wall. Nobody's moving, especially not you. You can be here for days and days of normal time without a second passing back in the restaurant."

"That means I'm dying," Nick said.

She shook her head. "No it doesn't. It means you haven't decided yet. You still get to choose. We all get to choose certain things. I got to choose to do this, and you get to choose whether you go back or not."

Nick didn't know why, but next he asked, "Why don't you choose a name for yourself?"

The little girl tore her eyes away from the sand she was drawing in and looked up at Nick. "What?" she asked.

Nick smiled at the reversal in their roles. For the first time, she was asking him questions. "Pick a name for the people you help to call you. Your parents didn't get to name you, so you should be able to."

The little girl looked down at kept drawing in the sand. "I don't know what to only names I know are of the people I've met here," she said sadly.

Nick looked down at her busy hands moving through the sand, and a smile spread over his lips. "How about Lily?"

The little girl looked up at him. "That's pretty. What made you think of that?"

Nick pointed to what she had drawn in the sand. "That's a Lily, it's a type of flower."

The little girl smiled happily and nodded in agreement. "Okay, that's my name then. Thanks Nick."

Nick laughed lightly. "You're welcome Lily."

"You need to keep some things in mind," Lily said, getting right back to business. "No one else can choose for you. Only you can choose whether or not you go back. And you can't lie. Even if you do, we'll know you're lying. What you say has to match how you feel, no matter what. Okay?"

Nick nodded. "Okay."

"You also need to remember that Ray is back there, by himself, with a dying man and another man with a gun. He needs you. But you can't help him unless that's what you really, truly want. You have to do what you want, not what you think you want. Okay?"

"Okay," Nick replied with another nod.

Lily smiled. "Good. So what you're going to do is meet with five people that you know. They're the ones who are really going to help you. They're going to teach you your lessons. You can't lie to them, and they can't lie to you. You're helping them as much as they're helping you. But you only get to see them for as long as it takes. You can't go back to see any of them, and you don't get to choose until you're done with all five."

"Are they all dead?"

Lily nodded. "Yes. They are in what they have decided is their heaven. If you choose to stay, you get to stay in what you want to be your heaven."

"Does everybody get to choose like I do?" Nick asked.

Lily shook her head. "No, most people just die and then they meet their five people and then they go to their heaven if they deserve it. But you're different. You don't have to die. You can go back, but only if you want to."

Nick nodded weakly. "Alright."

"The longer you take to decide, the harder it's going to be to want to go back. You're gonna have a million reasons to want to stay here. But if there's just one reason to want to go back, that's enough. One little thing is enough to make you want to go back, and you have to do what you want."

Lily suddenly looked over her shoulder and was smiling widely when she looked back at Nick. "Okay, you understand. She's coming now. After your time with her, she'll send you to the next person and then so on. You'll see me again when you're done with all five, and that's when you decide."

Lily stood up and brushed the sand from her dress. "Don't be scared Nick, they can't hurt you. Not if you don't let them."

And with that Lily turned and began walking into the ocean. She walked into the water and continued until she disappeared into the waves. Nick watched until he couldn't see her anymore before he turned his gaze to where Lily had looked when she had glanced over her shoulder. He saw a shadowy figure making its way towards him.

Nick couldn't help but hold his breath in anticipation for who was coming to help him.