A/N Ok, guys, this is my first ever CSI fanfic...braces self…be gentle…:o)

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI and its characters, unfortunately.

Post-Overload tag

Warrick Brown entered the locker room of the Las Vegas Crime Lab after a long and tiresome shift. He found his friend and co-worker Nick Stokes sitting on one of the benches. "Hey, man," Warrick greeted him as he opened his locker.

"Hey."

Warrick glanced over his shoulder at Nick, who seemed to be staring off in space. "What's up with you?"

"Nothin'."

Now this just wasn't right, Warrick thought. Nick was only this quiet when something was bugging him. "I heard Catherine almost took you off the psychiatrist-from-hell case," he commented casually, rummaging around in his locker.

"How'd you know?"

Warrick turned to look at Nick, an eyebrow raised. "You know these walls have ears, man."

"Greg," Nick surmised.

"Uh-huh."

"Figures."

Warrick studied his friend as Nick slowly bent over to tie his shoes. Nick was definitely being unusually quiet today. Warrick had bumped into him a couple of times in the hallways during shift, but his friend had seemed too lost in thought to say much, which was pretty uncharacteristic for the usually quite bubbly Nick Stokes. Whenever he was being quiet, Warrick knew something was going on.

"So what happened?" Warrick asked, hoping to elicit more from his friend than a few one-word phrases.

"Well…" Nick said slowly, pausing as he sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. He seemed to be contemplating what to say and how much to say. "I was kinda flying off the handle during the case. Shut Catherine out, jumped to conclusions, that kind of stuff."

"And why would you do that?" Warrick asked, absently grabbing a clean shirt from his locker.

Nick shrugged. "I felt for the kid. I mean, he was fourteen years old and was being sexually abused by his psychiatrist. That's what I thought anyway."

Warrick paused right in the middle of pulling on his shirt. Alarm bells were going off in his head. "Well, what made you think he was being sexually abused?"

"The evidence pointed towards it for one. And I thought, well…" he trailed off and suddenly bent down to tie his other shoe.

The alarm bells in Warrick's head were turning into wailing sirens. He pulled on his shirt all the way, closed his locker and sat down next to Nick. "Something happened to you, didn't it? When you were younger?"

Having finished tying his shoe, Nick slowly sat up again, but carefully avoided Warrick's gaze. "Yeah." Then he chuckled and shook his head. "Yeah, I was molested by my babysitter when I was younger. How crazy is that?"

Even though Nick seemed to be trying to laugh it off, it was clear to Warrick that he was not okay with it. His most recent case had obviously reopened some old wounds that had never really healed in the first place. "What happened?"

"We were sitting on the couch, watching a movie. I was nine and was supposed to be in bed at eight, but she said I could stay up a little longer if I behaved. She was, I dunno, in her forties or something. So we were watching a movie and suddenly she starts to kiss me and rub my legs and stuff. Before I knew it she was on top of me. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew that, whatever she was doing, I didn't like it. I told her to stop, begged her, screamed at her, but she just ignored me." Nick paused, obviously trying to keep his emotions in check. "Anyway, when she was finished she sent me to my room and said if I told anyone, she'd tell my parents what a bad boy I'd been. So I never told anyone."

"Nick…I'm sorry, man." Warrick didn't know what else to say. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Nah, it's fine, you know, I'm over it," Nick said, meeting Warrick's gaze for the first time since their conversation started. "Cath reacted the same way." He laughed, but to Warrick it sounded hollow. "I've kept my mouth shut about it for like 20 years and suddenly I'm spilling the beans to everyone." He shook his head, his smile fading again. "Anyway, I'm a grown man now. It's just when we come across cases like this, they kinda remind me of my own experiences, you know?"

Warrick nodded, then stopped abruptly. "Wait a minute, 'experiences'? Plural? As in, more than one?"

Nick sighed. "Yeah," he said slowly, and this time Warrick heard a slight tremor in his friend's voice. He waited for him to elaborate, but Nick remained silent, looking down at his hands.

"Nick?" he prodded.

"I had one other experience like this. I was a little older then. It was…" Nick hesitated, "with a friend of my father's."

Warrick stared at him, a stunned look on his face. "You're kidding me, right?"

Nick snorted bitterly. "I wish I was." He shook his head. "He was like family, you know, I'd known him all my life. He always told me I was his favourite nephew."

"I guess he liked you a little too much, huh?" Warrick said quietly.

Nick smiled ruefully, looking down at his hands again. "Yeah," he replied and fell silent.

Warrick sensed his friend's reluctance and hesitation and he wasn't sure whether he should encourage Nick to go on, at the risk of being too pushy. Even though he considered himself to be a man with good people skills, Nick was usually the more sensitive one, the one more in tune with other people's feelings. Warrick sat there for a moment, contemplating what he should say and finally decided to just ask him. "You wanna tell me about it?"

Nick looked back at him for a long moment and then shook his head. "Nah, maybe some other time," he said, standing up and getting his jacket out of his locker.

Warrick watched him for a minute. He knew it wasn't healthy for the man to bottle things up, but he realized that Nick needed to be able to decide for himself whether he wanted to talk about what happened to him or not. His friend didn't deserve to be pushed into talking about anything. Especially since he'd obviously been forced to do things against his will before. If Nick wasn't ready to talk about it, he wasn't going to push the matter.

Warrick got up and grabbed his own coat. "All right, bro," he said. "You wanna go grab something to eat?"

Nick looked over at him in surprise, pausing in the middle of zipping up his jacket. "Yeah, sounds good," he replied, and suddenly he flashed his million dollar smile at Warrick, obviously grateful for the change of subject.

Warrick returned the smile and patted his friend on the back. "C'mon, I know this excellent Chinese place. I'll drive."

"Man! I feel like I'm going to explode any minute!" Nick exclaimed as he opened Warrick's car door.

They had finished eating half an hour ago and now Warrick was dropping Nick off back at the Crime Lab to get his own car.

"Yeah, they're definitely nasty people, serving all that tasty food," Warrick said with a grin, watching his friend climb out of the car.

"Oh, hey, thanks for buyin', man," Nick said, turning back to the other CSI and suddenly growing serious. "You're a good friend, 'Rick…and I'm not saying that because you bought dinner!" he added with a laugh.

"Hey, next time you get to buy and I'll make sure we'll be heading some place a little more expensive," Warrick replied with a smirk. Then he too grew serious. "You gonna be okay?"

Nick paused, as he seemed to think about that for a minute. "Yeah," he said finally, and then his lips quirked into a genuine smile. "See you in a couple hours!" He shut the car door and started to make his way to his own vehicle.

"Call if you need me!" Warrick called after him, as he slowly pulled up.

Nick gave him a little wave to indicate that he'd heard and that he appreciated the offer.

Warrick watched him get into his own vehicle and then started on his way home. He smiled to himself; he'd succeeded in cheering Nick up a little and in getting his mind off things, but he'd also gotten some new insight into his friend. They'd been extremely tight ever since Warrick joined the Crime Lab several years ago. During that time, he'd gotten to know Nick as a friendly, easy-going and caring guy who sometimes was a bit too empathetic with victims, or just with people in general. But he also had a cheerful personality and he was very quick to smile, which made him a great guy to be around, even when you were in a foul mood.

Warrick's smile faded as he thought back to what Nick had revealed about himself earlier that night. He never would have thought that Nick had such a dark past. Sexual abuse… Jesus. Warrick shook his head; now that had been something he'd never expected to hear coming from his best friend's mouth. Warrick gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, suddenly feeling angry. God knew what else the guy had been through.

Maybe that was why Nick always had so much empathy for victims; he knew what it felt like to be one.

Warrick turned on his radio to try and get rid of the images that had started to form in his mind. Not only had Nick been molested by his baby-sitter, but his wanna-be uncle had abused him as well. Warrick wondered if Nick had told anyone about that; it seemed that Nick had more trouble with what happened with his 'uncle' than with what happened with his baby-sitter, which could mean two things. Either Nick was more upset about the thing with his 'uncle' simply because he had been someone Nick had trusted and whom he'd known his entire life, or, and that was what Warrick was worried about, his 'uncle' had taken things a lot further than molestation.

Warrick shuddered. He couldn't bear to think that something like that had happened to his best friend. He didn't blame Nick for not wanting to tell him about it.

As he steered his Tahoe onto his driveway, he wondered whether he should ask Nick about it again sometime. Not that he relished the thought of knowing what kind of atrocities Nick had had to endure when he was younger, but if it meant helping his friend deal with this stuff, so be it. He switched off the engine and sat in silence for a moment, contemplating.

After a few minutes, he came to the decision that he would let Nick decide if and when he was going to talk about it. He knew Nick was nowhere near having a breakdown because of all that stuff; he was just going through a rough spot, like they all did occasionally. It came with the job. So there really wasn't any need to corner him and ask him about it. He trusted Nick to come to him about it when he was good and ready and when he felt he needed to get it out of his system. Of course, in Nick's case that might be never, given his reluctance to talk about his personal problems, but he would leave the choice to Nick. Until then, he would just make sure that nobody was going to give Nick a hard time about it.

I got your back, Nicky.

The end.