Author's notes: I know this is a real depressing piece but to me it's more of an insight to Nick Stokes. I've watched him during all those seasons, and all I can say is something's going on with him, other then the fact the Producers are hardly giving him any screen time.

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or its characters. This is only an interpretation of who it could be.

Not good enough, he always felt like whatever he did was just not good enough. He tried his hardest to please them, to please him, but in return what he got was riddles or half made comments which only made him feel empty inside. He wasn't sure how long he was able to keep up because everyday was starting to become a struggle.

They had no idea, he never let on. He was the guy they could depend on to do his job, the one who never complained and the one who made them coffee when they needed it. He didn't talk about his feelings, sometimes something slipped but who cared? They were all so caught up in their own mess to even notice what a fucking mess he was himself.

Nobody noticed his smiles never reached his eyes, nobody noticed his jokes were forced and his fooling around with Greg had lessened. Because even Greg was busy these days, part of the team, part of that perfect team of Grissom.

And he was left to swing shift, along with Warrick, who seemed to be doing most of the cases these days. He was left to do stuff in the Lab, to collect evidence and hand over the results. He almost forgot what it was like to solve the case, the thrill when another puzzle was unravelled. His thrill had been the compliments of the others, the rare remarks that made his day.

And now rare had turned into even rarer. They didn't even bother to ask why he was late, what happened, what was going on in his life. They never realized he stopped talking months ago, they never realized he had moved to another house because Crane's influence had left him aching all over.

To them it was over because Nigel had gone to prison, to them he was doing fine because he was doing his job and not screwing up.

In the beginning he could pretend to himself he was doing fine too, but now he just felt so alone in an office full of people. Often he just wanted to jump in his car, and just drive himself of a cliff, because he knew nobody was going to miss him. But the truth was, he was terrified of dying, the thought of not being able to walk or think or just do anything. So he continued, he lived, survived and prayed maybe some day he got lucky when some drunk driver collided with his car.

He tried to make that emptiness go away, by doing stuff, going out though meeting all those strangers and the nameless sex wasn't doing anything to him. He worked out every day, getting that anger out of his system, to prevent himself to do harm to himself or somebody else. To others it seemed he only wanted to look good, but he just didn't want to maim himself, not anymore.

He shaved off his hair, the only thing he had been proud off, the only thing he had liked about himself to let others know something was going on. But they said it looked good on him, that new look. And sure, they all wanted to touch his trimmed head but those were not the kind of touches he wanted. And so he kept it short, so he could look in the mirror and actually hate himself even more.

He was ugly, and dirty and so not worth to get noticed, every day just proved that. Catherine's reaction to him telling her about his abuse just proved that. He let others touch him, nameless faces and bodies, let them do stuff he never wanted to do because that was his punishment. Let Grissom taunt him because that was what he was there for. And every day was a struggle to live, to get up and care.

"Hey Nicky, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine."

The End