Title: Another Life: The Story of Nick Stokes
By: Ericalynn
Fandom/Genre: CSI: Vegas/angst, character study
Character: Nick Stokes
Prompt: strength, battles, alone
Disclaimer: I don't own the character or the TV show, just borrowing it.
Warnings: Spoilers for multiple seasons
Summary: He could feel himself slipping a little more and more with each passing day. Maybe in another life, in another time, he would have been able to stay, but not today. Today, he needed a change.

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Long, tan fingers itched to run over his shorn scalp once more, a newly formed nervous tick. Instead, they twined together, twisting and wringing, tugging and pulling until his skin was slick with sweat. He sat hunched over in his chair, elbows propped on knees, eyes averted to the carpet beneath his feet. Anything was better than looking in their eyes, seeing the anguish he knew would be there; the same phantom pain that sung in his soul, keeping him awake and dogging his every thought. He could feel himself shaking his head and wondered when his eyes started to burn with tears.

A hand came to lie gently on his back, pulling him from his thoughts. But he couldn't look up, couldn't face them. Nicky. They were calling him. They were worried. He could feel their eyes upon him, willing him to give up those deepest, darkest secrets that he would only utter to the stillness of the night. Swallowing hard, he finally picked his head up and blinked back the tears as he looked at each of them. Warrick. Sara. Greg. Catherine. Grissom. Each served as a rock, a corner of his foundation, an anchor for him in all his years in Vegas. They'd picked him up when he'd fallen, wiped away his tears, always ready with a smile and an ear even when life had drug him through hell and back. But there was one battle they couldn't fight with him and it was the one he was losing. He could feel himself slipping a little more and more with each passing day. Maybe in another life, in another time, he would have been able to stay, but not today. Today, he needed a change.

"I - I'm . . ." he swallowed again, picking a point just above their heads before he attempted to speak again. "I'm sorry." He nodded his head with conviction once. Twice. Three times before he had to duck his head in hands again as the first tear slipped passed all the walls he'd built up. He didn't know what else to say to them, didn't know how to make them understand that there were some things a person couldn't beat.

To say the events of the last two years had driven him over the edge would be unfair. Sure they gave him a nice shove closer to the ledge, but there were things brewing under the surface much longer than that. Shadowed horrors lurking in the back of his mind, only making their presence known once and a while, things that had been there . . . well, for a lifetime it seemed.

Walter Gordon. Plexiglas. Fire ants. Coffins. Dirt. Even the feel of the cold hard ground pressed against his back, they all served to send chills racing up and down his spine. He couldn't walk through a cemetery without having a panic attack. He couldn't get lost in his thoughts when in the lab for fear of what the glass walls around him would turn into. He couldn't wear a tie, never buttoned the top button on his dress shirts, and couldn't even step into an elevator without pause. Sure, he was gaining the upper hand on his emotions; bathroom stalls, basements, and the back seat of cars no longer freaked him out as much. But there were some things he just couldn't do.

He couldn't do buggy, decomposing bodies with Grissom. He first month back there had been no choice. He had been held up while the other assignments had given out and had been lucky enough to arrive as the call came in. Grissom gave him sideways looks every few minutes as Nick walked the perimeter, searching the ground for any sign of evidence. And he'd been okay until he had returned back to the body to report to Grissom. He watched with morbid fascination as the creatures crawled over the victim's flesh, feasting on the carcass as if a few days ago it hadn't been a living and breathing part of society. He could feel the ghost of millions of tiny legs creeping over his flesh, the sting of a hundred bites as he was made into a living feast for them. He couldn't tear his gaze away until the phantom feet became real and his fixation turned from bugs on a dead body to a bug crawling on living flesh. For a moment he froze, the beetle crawling over his gloved fingertips and up his hand until it reached his forearm. As soon as it reached the crook of his elbow he let out a yell, beating frantically at his arm as he tried to get the offending creepy-crawly off him. Grissom and Jim were right there, hands holding him still as the bug was flicked off, soothing words washing over him until the panic fled, leaving him panting, kneeling were he had sunk to the ground.

After that night they did their best to accommodate him, trying valiantly to protect him from similar circumstances. But it soon became apparent they couldn't always protect him, especially when some of the terror inducing triggers crept around a certain room in the lab. Nick still had a hard time going into Grissom's office. As long as the silence didn't stretch on, as long as he kept his eyes trained on a file, or the carpet, or his hands, or even his supervisor's eyes, he was okay. As long as his imagination didn't run away with him during his famous "lapses".

No, it wasn't just being drugged and buried alive by a psychotic father trying to make the police pay for injustice against his daughter that made him question his sanity. There was being held at gunpoint numerous times, looking into the eyes of desperate criminals, knowing he was the only thing to either bring them to justice or set them free. He still hesitated to draw his gun, but not nearly as long as before. Its weight, the cool metal pressed into his palm, was soothing when faced with uncertain circumstances. No, he didn't draw and go looking for trouble, but he no longer left it up to the officers on scene to ensure his safety. No, when it happened now, he took charge. And it wasn't the fact that for three weeks there had been a man living in his attic, watching his every move with keen interest. It wasn't just the fact that said man killed for him, twice, and then was willing to kill again to prove his friendship to Nick. Much larger things had happened before and more dramatic things afterwards that built up upon a soul like waves crashing upon the shore, slowly but surely wearing it down further and further until it gave way.

He'd fallen to being contemplative at times. And angry at others. He picked fights with those closest to him but no one ever said a word about it. After tempers had cooled off and the case solved, things just slid back to normal. The others gave him his space, backed off when he got in those moods, but they never questioned it. It wasn't until he started confronting suspects that way, slamming them against walls and getting in their face, raging, did anyone knock him down a peg. And even then Grissom and Jim had done it quietly, a look of understanding and helplessness in their eyes. It was then he realized how far he had fallen, hanging on to sanity by a mere thread. This wasn't him.

Nick Stokes was sure of himself, trusted evidence, trusted the people around him, was able to find even the minutest bit of good in a person, could face even the most heinous crime scene with a balance of detached empathy and determination. This Nick Stokes was out of balance, jumping the gun, fearful of the shadows, haunted by unseen demons, was fighting himself and losing the battle. They knew about his babysitter, had helped him through Nigel Crane, being held at gunpoint, and tossed out a second story window. They pulled him from his premature grave and protected him to the best of their abilities from the other horrors of the world. But the one thing they couldn't do was save him from himself.

"I have to leave" he told them, his lip quivering, floundering for words as the nicely put together speech vanished in his head. "I can't do it anymore, at least not right now. I need to get some . . . things straightened out. Who I used to be, well it's been a lifetime since he's been around." He wiped away a tear and dropped his head into his hands.

"I don't know how to make you understand." Words fled him as did his courage. But maybe it wasn't words that they needed. As he looked up at them again, he could see the tears forming in their eyes, watched Warrick clench his jaw in anger and sorrow, watched as Sara tried to sniff back impending wave of tears, watched as Cath covered her mouth and blinked hard, watched as dawning drew across Greg's face, watched as Grissom's mask slipped away. Maybe they did know, they did understand. "I need to do this. I need to win this one by myself."

"But Nicky-" the inevitable protests came and died on their lips as he shook his head.

"You can't save me this time. I'm sorry." And before he could change his mind, he stood and walked out of the room, leaving his ID badge and his gun sitting on the bench. He could feel their eyes on him as he walked down the hall, pulling his bag over his shoulder and retracing the steps he took daily. He felt all the other eyes on him as well, the lab techs, the cops and detectives, and the other staff members wandering the halls. He took a deep breath and wiped away his tears as he approached the door. Hesitant, nervous shaking hands hovering above the door handle. Sure he was leaving Las Vegas, but maybe it wasn't for good.

With a new sense of conviction, he pushed open the door and stepped out into another life.

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