"You okay, Nick?"

"Yeah," Nick said, his voice breaking, as he nodded vigorously. Grissom looked at him for a long moment, and Nick felt himself withering under his boss' gaze, ashamed of the tears that wet his cheeks in arcs where his eyelashes touched his skin.

Then Grissom turned, walking away with the woman who had almost killed Nick. Nick shook his head, disgusted with himself. He tugged his latex gloves off and put a hand on his hip, using the other to roughly brush away the tears.

Stop it. This is ridiculous. Nothing happened to you. You didn't die – His stomach suddenly churned and he ran outside and was sick in some bushes.

Wiping his mouth, he stood up again and walked back into the house. He walked straight past the place where he could still envision his own blood spattering the floor and walls, slowing only to snag his kit from where it rested on the floor, and continuing out to the driveway.

The police car holding Amy Hendler was just pulling away from the curb, the small bits of gravel that littered the road making scratching noises as the motion of the rolling tires rubbed them against the pavement. Nick winced at the sound.

"Gris? I'm gonna take this evidence back to the lab." He didn't phrase it as a question.

"Sure, Nick," Grissom said easily, turning back to the house. "I'll collect whatever else I find and bring it back later."

Nick didn't respond, hadn't even stopped when Grissom spoke. By the time Grissom finished his sentence, Nick was swinging himself into the driver's seat of the Denali. He dropped his kit on the back seat and pulled the key out of his pocket. He couldn't get the key in the ignition; his hand was shaking too much. When he finally managed, he turned the key quickly, the engine coming to life with a low rumble.

He drove away from the house, automatically making the turns that took him back to the lab. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles turned white and ached, but he didn't care. Anything to make them quit shaking.

Nick found himself pulling into a gas station, walking into the little store. He heard his voice ask for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He watched his own shaking hands pull out some money and hand it to the man behind the counter. He watched as some coins and a little plastic bag were placed in his hand, as his hand closed around the items tightly.

Then he was in his car again, pulling into the lab parking lot. He carried the evidence into the lab, just like always. He put it on a layout table, wrote about it on the forms, illegibly because his hands wouldn't stop shaking.

He placed the evidence in a box, labeled that too, but no one would be able to read it anyway. Grissom came in some time later, he wasn't sure how long, and said something, something about going home. Nick only nodded, and pushed the box toward him.

Nick walked straight up to the roof, only stopping to grab some stuff from his locker. Once up there, he walked over to the edge and looked down. It wasn't very high, not so high that it would kill him to fall, not so short that it wouldn't hurt if he did.

Most things in life were like that, he thought. Bad enough to hurt, but not bad enough to actually kill you.

I nearly died tonight, he thought. His stomach lurched again. He sat down and put his back against the ledge of the roof. He pulled out the crumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one, inhaling deeply, closing his eyes.

The image of that gun filled his mind again, an empty vortex, spiraling in to his ultimate demise. Dark like Amy Hendler's eyes as she apologized to him for what she was about to do…. As if that made it okay…

His cigarette was down to nothing. He stamped it out and lit another.

She was going to kill me, he thought. He watched his hand shake a little harder and took another long drag on his cigarette. Smoking had always calmed him down.

Nick was a criminalist, a scientist. He didn't want to deal with people pointing guns at him. He dealt with bodies, hairs, fibers, fingerprints. Not his own death. Death was not in his contract.

I don't want to die. He lit another cigarette. I'm not ready to die.

She had been so close, too. So close to taking everything from him. It was an interesting act, really, taking a life. It was theft, surely. But it wasn't, either. It was taking a person's life from them, and throwing it away. It wasn't just a selfish act of coveting. It was a waste.

"I'm sorry."

"No, wait!"

"But you arrested my husband." She said it as though it was his fault. His fault that she framed her husband, the man she "loved." He wanted to scream that it wasn't his fault, but he couldn't. He couldn't say anything. He lit another cigarette instead. Shouldn't he be calmer by now?

Nick wasn't sure how long he sat up there before the door swung open and Warrick walked through. He looked around uncertainly for a moment before his eyes landed on Nick. He walked over and sat next to the other CSI.

"Grissom told me what happened," he said, not looking at Nick.

"Yeah." They sat side by side, staring straight forward.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." Nick took a long drag on his cigarette.

"Since when do you smoke?" Warrick asked, suddenly.

"I don't." Warrick raised his eyebrows and nodded at the half empty pack sitting next to them. "I haven't since college."

"You're gonna make yourself sick smoking so much," Warrick warned. Nick just shrugged.

They were quiet for a while. When Nick reached for the cigarettes again, Warrick grabbed them first.

"Nah, man. You're cut off." Nick scowled at him. They sat quietly again, until Nick finally spoke.

"I think maybe I should be dead." Warrick just looked at him, waiting for him to continue. "She was about to pull the trigger."

"And then what?"

"Grissom came in. Said her name. She turned around, and he told me not to move. He talked her into putting the gun down." Nick picked up the bag the cigarettes had come in, twisting it, stretching the plastic beyond recognition. "Another few seconds and…"

"But it wasn't another few seconds. He got there in time," Warrick pointed out.

"But what if he doesn't next time?"

"What makes you think there's gonna be a next time?"

"What makes you think there won't be?" Nick challenged. They fell silent for a while, and then Warrick spoke.

"You're alive. You got another chance. There are people like Holly Gribbs who don't. You can't waste your second chance thinking about what could have happened." Nick had never heard Warrick mention Holly again, not after she died when he was supposed to be helping her at a scene.

"I guess…"

The sun was beginning to push its way over the horizon, the first few rays competing with the glaring neon of Las Vegas nightlife.

"Aren't you supposed to be working?" Nick asked.

"Got off early." At Nick's disbelieving look, he caved. "Fine. Grissom sent me to find you," he admitted.

Nick looked surprised. "Why?"

"'Cause you were walking around looking like you'd seen a ghost."

"How'd you find me up here?"

"Dunno. I always liked it up here. It's where I would have gone."

They watched the sun rise until the sun rise colors melted away like water colors down a drain.

"It's a new day," Nick said.

"Sure," Warrick said, clearly just going along with it.

"I could have died." Warrick waited. "But I didn't."

"Second chance. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life."