A/N: This is my first CSI fiction. I really loved the episode 'Grave Danger' and even though there are a ton of aftermath fics I figured one more couldn't hurt. My plan is to take it from that episode to the current ones detailing all of Nicks issues by way of him talking to a therapist. Tell me if you love it or hate it. Review please!

I don't own anything and all that jazz.

Nick sat outside the therapists office shaking his leg and fidgeting slightly. He couldn't keep still and not only because of the numerous bites still littering his skin. He didn't want to be here, didn't want to talk about it, but he knew there was no way he was getting out of this. Somehow he had fallen through the cracks after the Nigel Crane fiasco and managed to avoid this very office. He wasn't so lucky this time. Not that he expected to be after the entire department and then some witnessed his little foray underground. It had been 3 weeks since the.. incident. One week was spent in the hospital and the other two were spent with his family back in Dallas. They tried to convince him to stay longer, or even permanently, but he found that being surrounded by so many people all the time was definitely not conducive to his situation. He was always babied by his older siblings, a side effect of being the youngest in a large family he guessed, but he just couldn't handle it right now. He needed his solidarity as much as he was scared by the prospect of being alone. It was something he needed to get over, along with a multitude of other new phobias he acquired thanks to Walter Gordon. He supposed thats why he only put up a token protest when Grissom insisted he come see the departmental psychologist. Well that and his job depended on it. Still, he didn't have to like it, and he didn't. He wanted to deal with this the same way he dealt with everything else in his life- by not dealing with it. Its worked for him so far. Though if his luck kept up the way it had his whole life he didn't know how much more he could take. He may have reached his limit this time.

With that the door to the office opened and a fairly attractive middle aged woman came out. "Nick Stokes?" She asked him. "That's me," he replied as he stood. She held open the door as he walked in to the spacious office. It was obvious she had tried to make it as comforting a place as possible. It had a large, squishy couch that he perched on at her direction. There were large windows permeating an entire wall of the office allowing for generous lighting, which Nick found he was thankful for. There was an awkward moment as the therapist settled in to an equally comfortable looking chair in front of him. "It's nice to meet you, Nick, I'm Dr. Lucas but please, I like to be a bit informal if its alright with you, feel free to call me Rachel."

"Oh, um, ok.. Rachel. I, uh, I don't really know how to do this, you know," Nick stuttered. "It's ok, don't worry about it. We can start wherever you feel comfortable."

"I just never do this, you know. After anything. I always just deal with it."

"And how does that work for you?" Rachel asked.

"I manage. Always have." Nick stated.

"Always have? How long have you had to 'just deal with it.'" Rachel asked, concerned.

"Well, uh, things always seem to, you know, happen to me. Bad things. Just my luck I guess."

"What kind of bad things, Nick. Besides what happened 3 weeks ago."

Nick shifted of the couch, trying to avoid the topic. Though, he supposed, if he had to talk about something it might as well be anything but the.. incident.

"Just, you know.."

"No, actually, I don't. I know what's in your official file. I know about Amy Hendler and Nigel Crane. I know about Walter Gordon. And yeah, those were bad, but I have a feeling there's more. Is there, Nick?"

"Well there was Kristy. I'm surprised thats not in the file, too," Nick responded.

"Who is Kristy?"

"She was my.. friend. I wanted to help her, get her off the streets. She was a hooker but she wanted to go back to school, make something of herself. I could have loved her, you know, really loved her. She understood me like no one else did. We had sex one night. I left to get us breakfast and I came back to a crime scene. She was murdered by her pimp who tried to set me up. If it wasn't for my team I'd be behind bars right now." Nick sighed as he thought of her once again. It still hurt, even years later.

"You and your team are pretty close, yes?"

"Yeah. Kind of hard not to be when you work so close together for so long, I suppose. We have kind of a wacky schedule, hard to make a lot of friends. Especially if your not from around here. They're kind of my surrogate family I suppose." Nick said with a wry smile.

"That must be nice. Especially coming from such a large family as yours."

"Yeah it was a big change to move out here."

"Then why'd you do it?" Rachel asked.

"I have a big family, I'm the youngest. They all followed in the 'family business' and I didn't. Everybody knows the Stokes name in Texas, it's a lot to live up to."

"And you didn't want to live up to it or you didn't think you could?"

"Both, I guess. I always felt like the disappointment. Everyone else is a lawyer or a doctor or something. I was a cop then a criminal investigator. I felt like they looked down on me for it, sometimes, even if they never actually said it."

"What makes you think that?" Rachel wondered.

"Little things. Comments they'd make basically telling me I could do better. Sometimes a sibling or two would make a snide remark. Calling my job the 'grunt work.' They make comments all the time about how I should get married, have kids, move back to Texas, constantly. Kind of wears on you, you know doc?"

"Yeah, I suppose it would," Rachel responded. "So you moved to Las Vegas for a new start?"

"Yeah. I got a position at the lab and I jumped at the chance. Its one of the best in the country and I would be working under Grissom. It was a great opportunity."

"So Mr. Grissom was a deciding factor in this decision?"

"Yes and no. I mean he is a renowned CSI. I knew I'd learn a lot working under him. I figured if he thought I was a good CSI then I really was," said Nick.

"You wanted to impress him," Rachel stated.

"In a way, yeah, I did."

"You needed his approval?"

"I didn't need it, I wanted it. Not that I ever got it," Nick said with a bitter edge.

"What do you mean? He doesn't approve of you? Of your work? From what I hear your quite the CSI, one of the best in the lab."

"Who told you that? No, I'm never good enough for him. I'm just a big disappointment. My life story."

"Why do you think that you disappoint him?"

"Because I do. I don't solve some stupid riddle and I'm a bad CSI, not ready for a solo. Even if I solve a case I missed this, or that, or I got too involved with the victim. There's always something," Nick replied.

"It seems to be a popular theme. You think you disappoint your family and now Mr. Grissom. Why does his opinion matter so much to you?"

"He's my supervisor. Or was, anyway. Or I guess he is again, I'm not quite sure on the whole shift situation anymore. It matters to me, I don't know why. Though I've come to realize since nothing I do is ever good enough that I shouldn't try anymore."

"So you just conceded. And now what," Rachel questioned.

"Now I do my job. It's all I have left," Nick said, sadly.

"All you have left? You have a family in Texas that loves and cares about you. You have a family here in Vegas that loves and cares about you. It sounds like you have a hell of a lot," Rachel said, forcibly.

"And now? My family looks at me with pity and sadness, they talk to me like I'm going to die in the next minute, and they don't even know the half of it! My friends all saw me in that box, they saw me as I screamed and cried and almost shot myself to end the damn torture I was going through! How can they ever look at me the same way? Any of them?" Nick shouted, near tears. He took deep breaths to try and control himself, drinking some of the water that Rachel pushed towards him.

"They will," she said softly. "They will because they love you. Yes they saw you go through all of that, Nick, but they also see you now, a survivor. You are stronger and braver then you think. There are very few people who could go through what you did and still be alive to talk about it."

"I just.. I just wish it never happened."

"I know Nick, we all do. But now all you can do is keep surviving until you can start living again."

Both parties were silent for a few minutes, Nicks soft sniffling the only thing breaking the quiet until Rachel spoke again;

"I think thats enough for today. Go home, Nick, I'll see you in a few days."

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