It should've been him.
That's all he can think about when he sees Casey's face, now. That it should've been him in that hospital. He saw the look on the doctor's face, the hang of his head, and he knew she was gone. And when Casey broke down…it should've been him that went to him. It didn't matter what bad blood there was between them; they had been friends, once upon a time. Maybe they still were, when it came right down to it.
But he froze.
He doesn't freeze. It's not what he does. He's a firefighter, dammit; he sees a situation, and he responds.
That day, though, all he could do was stand there and listen to his sobs echo down the hall. Watch Peter Mills do what he should've. In that moment, he froze, because he realized nothing else mattered. Not their feud, not truck or squad. What mattered was the man standing in that hallway, crying into the shoulder of the wrong guy.
It should've been him.
The cigars were an apology, kind of. He couldn't change the past, but he could do better in the future, so the next day, he went out, bought a pack of Matt's favorite, and dug his cutter out of his sock drawer.
He didn't offer the next day. Or the day after that. Hell, he hardly saw him; Matt was down at the station, working with the cops on Hallie's case. And for the record, wasn't really sure how he felt about that – Matt working with that son of a bitch Voigt, after everything he'd done to him and Hallie – but he told himself that it wasn't his business. Matt would do what he needed to do, and Kelly trusted him enough to know what that was.
But then he saw him. It was a couple days after the fire, in the midst of all the bullshit with Tara, and he was passing his quarters when he caught sight of the blond head through the door out of the corner of his eyes. He slowed his steps, took a moment to take in the hunch of his shoulders, the way he was staring at that miniature halligan in his hands like it was the last liferaft on a sinking ship. And maybe things had been strained between them, but if anybody knew Casey, it was Kelly – especially now, he thought with a sick twist of his gut – and he knew that Casey was really, really not okay.
So, he reached into his pocket. He'd had the cigars in them, trying to find a good time, and this seemed like it. Clearly, he wasn't doing anything, and he really needed the distraction.
Their conversation only made him hate himself more. Made him feel like more of a let-down. Casey'd had to tell her family by himself. He could only imagine him driving that truck of his, sitting outside, trying to string the words together to let parents know that their child was gone. Their little girl was dead. It was bad enough when they didn't know the family, but Hallie…Hallie was his fiancée. They'd had their rough patches, but Kelly knew he loved that girl, and the thought of him having to walk in, and not only having to tell her parents, but to find out that her sister was there, that the whole family was there, and to still have to drop that bomb…he shouldn't have had to do it alone.
Kelly should've been there.
He didn't even know why he felt like that. Why he suddenly felt like friend of the year, felt like he owed Casey so much. He guessed, somewhere down the line, he'd realized that Andy wasn't Matt's fault. Andy didn't do anything he didn't want to do, and more than that, he did a lot of things he shouldn't. Casey wasn't any more responsible for him going through that window than Kelly was, and the more he thought about it now, the more stupid he felt for spending so long with his head up his ass. The more pointless all of the feuds seemed.
The more he wanted to get back to where they'd been, before…before everything had gone to shit.
So, his offer for golf and smokes might've had some ulterior motives. It was true what he said – that Casey needed some normalcy. That it had done him good after Andy had died to just get back into some of his old habits, not think about everything that had changed for just a little while.
With any luck, it would do the same for Casey. Get him out of that head of his that he knew, for Casey especially, could really put him through the ringer.
He wished he could do more than that. Casey needed more than that. Deserved more than that. But Kelly knew better than to push too hard. They were both kind of independent, and Kelly respected him too much to smother him, try to force too much on him. All he could do was offer him a lifeline, another raft for that sinking ship he was on, and hope like hell he'd take it before the thing went down.
He realizes now it might've been too little, too late.
It's the night after the prison fire. Everybody left the hospital a few hours ago, and Kelly's in kind of a weird place. He's riding the high of a new member in their extended family. A godson, and Shay's pregnant. He can't get his head around it. It's a lot of change, hella fast. It's good change, though. They need some of that around the station. Shay's decided to hold off on the announcement, though, until after the funeral tomorrow. Kelly agrees. Doesn't want the moment to be weighted down with something like a funeral, and maybe that's selfish or something, but…it just seems like the right thing to do. Hallie deserves as much. The baby deserves as much.
At the same time, he feels kind of out of whack. Stressed out. He can't stop thinking about today, at the prison. Knowing that his men, his friends, were stuck in there with a bunch of psychopaths trying to kill them – never mind the damn fire – and there not being a damn thing he could do to help them. Just get to the basement and find the guy that could tell them what the hell to do to get the power back on.
It had taken everything he had, when they'd gotten back out, not to deck Esposito so hard, he forgot his own name. He should've been able to help them. He should've had a damn plan, but he'd acted like he couldn't care less, that son of a bitch. Like it didn't matter if each and every one of them died in that prison. If it hadn't been such a mad rush after, everyone trying to wrap up to get to the hospital to be there for Hermmann, he might've been tempted.
It was scary, how close they'd come. At the hospital, he'd seen the cut on Hermmann's neck. Another inch, another pound of pressure, and they would've been telling Cindy the story of how her husband had died in that prison. Telling her how he'd never get to see his new bouncing baby boy.
Worse. Hermmann pulled him aside after, as they were all getting set to leave. Told him about how Casey had offered himself up instead. The guy was holding a knife, clearly meant to use it, and he'd volunteered to take his place.
Maybe, on any other day, any other month, he could've chalked it up to Casey just being Casey. He was that kind of guy: the kind of guy that would throw his life down in a heartbeat if it meant saving someone else's. Truth be told, they probably all would've done it.
But it wasn't any of the others. It was Casey. Casey who just lost his fiancée. Casey, who's sister was barely talking to him. Whose mother was God knew where doing God knew what, and couldn't appreciate just how lucky she was to have what she had. To get the second chance he had given her. Hermmann had a family, a baby boy on the way, and Casey—Kelly just wondered what it was that had crossed Casey's mind when he'd volunteered.
On the other hand, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
It's the same, now, except for himself. He's standing on Casey's doorstep, a six pack in his hands and a pair of cigars in his pocket, and he's not really sure what's going through his head, but he doesn't really want to know. He doesn't want to think about it. He's tired of thinking. He's been thinking too much all day, worrying, riding the highs and lows, and he's just damn tired of it. He just…wants to have a couple drinks with his friend, have a smoke, maybe watch some shitty movies and shout at the TV like they used to.
He raises his hand to knock. No answer. He thinks that maybe he's not home, but the lights on, and Casey's too damn cheap to leave his lights on when he's not in the house.
"Casey, come on, open up. I know you're in there." He raises his hand to knock again, but that's when he sees the newspapers piled up by the door. There's six, maybe seven, and Kelly can't help thinking about all the times Matt's ragged on him for leaving shit on his door back at the apartment. It tells people you're not home, he always said. It's like begging a robber to break in. So he can't quite figure out what the hell he's doing, letting them pile up like that, but he knows it can't mean anything good.
He grabs the doorknob, planning on giving it a good rattle, let Matt know he's not leaving, so he might as well open the door. He's not expecting it to turn. Matt doesn't leave his door unlocked, either. He doesn't know what it is about him, but Casey's got all these things about his house. He doesn't leave lights on, always gets the paper, keeps it clean. Maybe it's the contractor in him. Or maybe it's the orphan, the one that values a home he didn't really get a chance to have. He doesn't know. He's never thought to ask.
He thinks, sometime, he might.
Not now, though. Now, he's turning the doorknob and walking, slowly, inside. He should probably call out, he knows, let Casey know he's coming in, except he's already knocked, and he's already let him know who it is, so he doesn't, just keeps on inside.
The first thing he notices is the mess. There's junk all over the place. Bottles, boxes. More fast food junk than Kelly likes to think about, and a box of tissues right next to a bottle of pills that he doesn't know if he wants to read the label on. The trash needs to be taken out, yesterday, and there's blankets and a pillow on the couch that make him wonder if Casey's slept in an actual bed that's not his cot at the station since Hallie died.
"Casey?" he calls out, because he doesn't see him at first. Just the mess, and that's kind of throwing him for a loop, because Casey's place is never messy. Even when he just bought it, when it needed to be fixed up – and now that he thinks about it, under the trash that's covering the place, it looks a whole hell of a lot nicer than it did the last time Kelly saw it; he really is good at what he does – he kept it pretty clean. But now….
And then he looks a little to the right, into the dining room, and his heart does a dive straight into his gut. Casey's sitting there, an oversized gray sweater and a pair of sweatpants that are comfort clothes if he's ever seen them, head bowed in his hands like he's trying to hide away from the world.
For a second, it's like he doesn't even hear him. It's not until Kelly says his name again, a little quieter this time because he feels like…he doesn't know, like he doesn't want to startle him? that he shows signs of life.
He jumps up. Too fast, Kelly thinks, like maybe he's startled anyway, and his eyes are wide and bloodshot, and his face is haggard in a way Kelly hasn't seen since Andy died. Even when that mess with Voigt was going down, he didn't look so…lost. But that's the only way to describe him now. Lost. Broken down. He backs himself up against the table, hands holding it like he's wishing he could sink back into it. He glances over to the side. There are cards sitting up on the table, with one of the countless beer bottles sitting around the place – and Kelly's not so sure drinking is the right course of action anymore; at least not beer, maybe something stronger like the whisky he's pretty sure Casey still keeps in the cabinet under the sink – and he knows they're all condolences. He kind of hates the sight of them. Like a card'll do the trick. Like that's gonna make the guy feel any better, the constant reminder of what he's lost on a pretty little two buck Hallmark card. He may not be the best friend in the world, but he'll damn well do better than that.
Casey swallows, and Kelly can almost hear it as much as he can see it. He turns those clear blue eyes on him, all red-rimmed and heavy with bags, and Kelly just feels a knife twist in his chest, because…Christ, he looks so sad. Like the whole world's gone, and he doesn't know why it left him behind.
He sinks back against the table, takes in a breath, and Kelly thinks he's going to say something, but he just shakes his head, looks away again. He doesn't know if he can't focus, if maybe he's had a few too many already, or if maybe he just doesn't want to. And he's not sure which option bothers him more.
Finally, though, he speaks. "Nothing," he says, and tapers off. His voice is hoarse and low, and it feels like Kelly's got a lump in his own throat just hearing it. "Nothing makes sense."
And then he looks at Kelly, and he can't even say what he'd give to be able to understand that look. It's like he's asking him for something. Begging. Desperate. It's like…it's like he wants Kelly to give him an answer to some question he doesn't know. Explain something to him that neither of them really understand. His eyes are shining, and Kelly's always believed that a man's tears are something private. Something he should keep to himself. But there are times when that rule's meant to be broken, with the right people and for the right reasons, and this feels like one of those times.
He doesn't really think about it. Doesn't really decide to do it. But one second he's standing there, beer in one hand and cigars in his pocket; and the next, he's got his arms around his friend's slimmer shoulders, tight, a hand on the back of his neck, and one between his shoulder blades so he can hear the thudding of his heart and the stuttering breaths.
It's how it should've been that day at the hospital.
It kills him, hearing Casey break down. He cries quietly. Silent, except for the quick, labored breaths. His shoulders shake, and he buries his face in Kelly's shoulder, twists his fingers in the back of his leather jacket, and Kelly knows there's nothing he can do, nothing he can say that'll make it any better. Make the pain any less or any easier to bear. He hates it.
But it's better this way. It's right, because it's him. It's his friend. It's not some rookie that's only known him a couple of months, it's not a doctor telling him there's nothing he could do. It's the guy that's known him since they were kids. The guy that was there the first time he broke his arm. The first time he got drunk. The first time he got high. It's the guy that lost his best friend the same day Casey did, and it's the guy that refuses, now, to lose another.
"I'm sorry, man," he says, and clears his throat, because there's a lump in it the size of a baseball, and it feels like he's been chewing cotton, and it might be that his eyes are burning a little, but it doesn't even matter. "I'm so fucking sorry."
It's not just an apology for Hallie. It's not just an apology for the shit he's been dragged through the last couple weeks, for everything he's had to go through.
It's an apology for that day at the hospital. For freezing like that, for letting Peter Mills be the one to pull him off that doctor in the hospital and keep the grief from taking his legs out from under him. It's an apology for not being there for him through all that shit with Voigt, for not having his back when he needed him. It's an apology for blaming him for something that was never really his fault. It's an apology for all the months they wasted hating each other when they both probably could've used a friend more than ever.
And it's a promise. It's a promise to put all that shit behind them – or at least to try like hell – and give this thing another shot, because they've known each other too damn long, had each others' backs too many damn times, to keep going like they have been. They don't have a lot. Neither of them do. He figures it's time to stop ruining a good thing, maybe try to fix it. Starting now.
It takes a good five, ten minutes for Casey to pull himself together enough to back away. His eyes are red and still kind of shining, but he looks a little better than he did, at least. Enough for Kelly to flash him a muted sort of smile and, with a quick squeeze of his shoulder, slip off into his kitchen to raid his liquor cabinet.
There isn't any awkwardness. He thought there might be, but there isn't. He doesn't think any less of Casey, any differently. He has a heart, and it's been smashed open and stepped on, and Kelly'd probably be freaked out if it didn't bother him. Doesn't make him any less of a man. The guy fights fires for a living, puts his life on the line. How the hell could tears change that?
And Casey, for his part, just seems too frayed to care anymore. He's got enough to worry about, especially with the funeral tomorrow. Kelly's strongly considering just staying the night. He'll crash on the floor, kick it old school. Call Shay and get her to bring his suit by in the morning or some shit, because clearly, Casey doesn't need to be by himself.
He comes over with the bottle and two glasses balanced miraculously – lots of practice – in one hand, and he sees Casey heading for the couch, so he grabs him around the upper arm and steers him towards the back door. When Casey looks at him funny, he just tells him to grab a coat and trust him, and for once, Casey doesn't argue.
A shadow of a smile pulls at Casey's chapped lips when they're sitting down on the back steps and Kelly whips out the pair of cigars. "You pour, I light," he says. He gets to cutting the cigars, getting them lit, while Casey pours a pair of glasses. Kelly looks at them and snorts. "Come on, man. Don't hold out on me."
"I can't be hungover for the funeral," Casey tells him without raising his eyes from the glasses. His voice catches over funeral, and the lip of the bottle clinks against one of the glasses. Kelly pretends not to notice on both counts.
"You're not gonna get a hangover from one glass," Kelly says, rolling his eyes. He's got one cigar going, and reaches over to stick it between Casey's lips, since both his hands are kind of occupied. It's ridiculously familiar. Takes him back to the days when they'd pass a blunt around – him, Matt, and Andy.
Casey cuts his eyes up at him, looking like he either wants to be annoyed or grateful, and kind of managing a tired combination of the two. He puffs some smoke out through the corner of his mouth, and goes back to pouring.
"Better." And with his own cigar lit and perched between his lips, he picks up one of the glasses.
They talk a little bit. Not about Hallie. Not about work. Not about anything that really matters. They talk about sports, and Kelly mentions he likes what he's done with the place, that maybe he kind of gets why people pay him. Maybe. It's mostly just noise. Blowing smoke and hot air until their glasses are finished and they've smoked their cigars through. By then, Casey looks a little more alive. A little more grounded, a little more solid. His eyes are still bloodshot, his shoulders still slumped under the weight of way too much shit he shouldn't have to be carrying, but…he looks better.
When they go inside, he offers to stay. Tells him he's not drunk, but he's probably over the legal limit, and calling a taxi would be a pain, because it's better than telling him he's afraid to leave him alone, for both their sakes. Kelly's honestly not sure what's going on with him. Why he's got this sudden…drive to take care of him. Make sure he's okay. But he's not gonna question it; just gonna go with it.
That seems to be the mode of the evening, because Casey just nods, tells him that he can have the guest bedroom if he wants, that it's all fixed up. Kelly's seen it on the way to the bathroom to take a leak, and knows Matt may have patched up the holes in the ceiling, may have put down the floors, but he knows why he's sleeping on the couch instead of in there: it's got Hallie's touch.
He comes back in with an armful of blankets and a pillow from the linen closet instead, and Matt doesn't ask. He's got that same mix of annoyance and gratitude, and maybe just a little bit of relief, and he waits until Kelly's made his makeshift bed on the floor to turn out the lights and sprawl out on the couch.
Kelly doesn't fall asleep immediately. Even with the whiskey buzzing dully in the back of his head, and the warmth of the cigar and the Blackhawks blanket weighing him down, he lies there, arms folded behind his head, just staring at the ceiling and listening. He can hear the cars outside, what few are still out. The quiet hum of the refrigerator. He can hear Casey shifting around under the blankets, trying to get comfortable, hear his breathing, hear it even out as he stills and finally, finally goes to sleep.
And then he closes his eyes, and follows him.