Disclaimer: I own nothing. Parts of the dialogue are taken directly from the episode "Inside the Box"

He had barely slept before his first day back at work, a mixture of pain and nightmares he couldn't clearly recall had added up to an unrestful night.

He was nervous when he left his apartment, but his nervousness only grew into apprehension and fear the closer he got to the CSI building. His hands started trembling so badly, that he had to pull up at the side of the road.

You can do that, this is nothing, he told himself. Everything is going to be fine, you love your job and are good it at. he took a couple of deep breath. He felt utterly stupid, but somehow it must have worked for him. While not claming down completely, he felt at least bale to complete the rest of the drive without causing a car accident.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. Greg was already exhausted when he finally pulled up in front of the CSI building. The drive had never seemed to so long. He looked at his place of employment with a feeling of anxiety and dread that he had never linked to his work. He could not quite explain it, the very thought of getting out of the car, entering the building and going to work in the temporary DNA lab made him cringe. He realized that he couldn't sit there in his parked car forever, he would eventually be later for his shift. Drawing any more attention was the last thing he wanted, so he forced himself to get out of the car and start walking towards the building. Every step seemed to require massive effort. After what seemed like hours, he finally arrived at the temporary lab. His lab used to have been his lair and he had always felt comfortable, just sometimes a bit boxed in. But now, he was feeling menaced. It was irrational and he knew it, but that didn't really help him. The work which, in spite of there being more people, working DNA had piled up quite a bit. He hope that work would distract him. Although neither his heart nor his mind where fully in it, it worked for a while. it worked until Catherine showed up. He had not really given that issue much thought during his hospital stay. He only knew that he didn't want to deal with it right now.

Catherine didn't bother asking him the generic "how are you" that everyone had asked him this day. He was glad for that.

"You know what off the record means, don't you Greg?"

"Yeah" Greg was surprised, this was not a scenario he had imagined. He waited for her to go on.

"Good" Catherine paused.

"I need you to run the sample from the scene against this." She handed him a sample containing a blonde hair.

"Sure. No problem"

"Thank you. Please send me the report as soon as you are done."

"I will" he answered, but Catherine had already left.

Greg didn't even want to know what this was all about. He had enough on his mind already. Normally he would have been extremely curious and would have done whatever he could to figure out what Catherine was doing. Instead he processed her request and send her the report, just as she had asked. But he kept a mental note and a copy of the report, just in case. By the time he got him from work, he felt like he had been working for a week straight. He was calmer at home, but the very idea of going back to the lab the next day made him nervous.

~~~~~

And now there he was, sitting in the break room, on his second day back at work, not sure what to do, but aware that something needed to be done. The memory of the past week showed him clearly what mess he had gotten himself into. His life seemed to suck and he was losing it at the job.

he had no idea how long he had been pondering his situation when Nick intruded on his thought

"Are you ok, Greg? You don't look too well" Nick was in the break room. Greg had no idea whether he had just come in or had been there any longer. He hoped for the former. After Grissom, he didn't need anyone else see him lose it.

He shoved his still trembling hands into the pocket of his lab coat, hoping that Nick hadn't noticed anything.

"No, I'm ok, just a bit tired" he told his second lie that day. It wasn't easy, but lying to Nick was not as hard as lying to Grissom. After all Grissom was the one who could have him on leave or even fired. And not only was he quickly turning incompetent, but had also run a test off-the-record. So, he concluded, it was maybe not just him being  all paranoid.

Before Nick had chance to say anything else he hurried out of the break room. He suddenly felt so trapped. Everywhere he went at the lab, there were people. people who might notice and ask him. he himself didn't even know what was wrong with him, expect life in general, so how the hell was he supposed to explain it to anyone. And whom was he kidding, the only thing that mattered here was that he was able to do his job without making any mistakes which threatened to blow the case and let the bad guys walk. Part of his mind told him that it wasn't that bad, there were people who also saw him as a person and not just as a piece of walking and talking lab equipment. He just wasn't too sure who that was. What Grissom had said today had been strange it had sounded as if the man actually cared. That was uncharacteristic for him.  The anonymous card writer, maybe. But he had no clue who that could be.

Having nowhere to run, he got back to the lab, there was work to be done. He was going to get through the rest of the shift, then he could decided what to do. He had not counted on his hands. Ever since the conversation with Grissom they had become incontrollable. Only be concentration with all his attention he could control the shaking briefly. That work was near impossible became clear to him, when he dropped a test-tube because of the shaking.

It wasn't a big deal and had happened to him before, but now it was the proverbial final straw that broke the horse's back. In his case, it brought on the grim realization that he wasn't up to his job anymore. The more upset he got with himself, the worse the shaking was getting.

He had made the decision, he could not continue. It hurt him that he was forced to leave his job, at least for a while, but there was no other way. Determined not t change his mind again, he headed for Grissom's office, only to find it looked. Shift was nowhere near over and as Grissom wasn't out on a case as far as he knew. Puzzled he was about to retreat to the lab, when he ran into Catherine.

Note: I never figure out how much time passes during one episode of the show. For the purpose of this story, I just assume that two days pass during "Inside the box". If anyone has figured out how much time is supposed to pass, please let me know. Also, big thanks to all who reviewed the story so far.