Black and Blue
A/N: This story was inspired by FrankieFandom's "Just an Accident". Hope you all enjoy, please read and review!
Kelly Severide marched into the 21st District and went over to the front desk where Trudy Platt was working.
"Something I can do for you, Severide?" she asked in her usual 'don't care' tone typically reserved for people she thought were wasting her time.
"Is Voight in?" Kelly asked.
"What's it to you?"
"I need to talk to him."
"What about?"
"I just need to talk to him," Kelly said, "is he in?"
Trudy sighed exasperatedly and responded, "One minute," and buzzed upstairs.
A couple minutes later Voight came down and looked surprised at who was standing by the front desk.
"What're you doing here, Severide?" he asked.
Kelly walked over to him and said, "I need to talk to you."
"Okay..."
"Not here," Kelly said, glancing around at all the other people that might overhear.
Voight seemed to get it and he told Severide, "Alright, come on upstairs, we'll talk in my office."
They headed up to the bullpen, Kelly looked around at the desks for any sign of Antonio, he didn't see him, and he heaved a sigh of relief at that.
Voight closed the door to his office behind Kelly and had him take a seat.
"So what's on your mind?" he asked as he sat down in the chair behind his desk.
Kelly looked at the Intelligence sergeant and suddenly lost the nerve he had to say what it was he'd come there for. He knew this wouldn't be easy, but just opening the door was harder than he thought it would be.
"Severide?"
Kelly blinked. Too late to back out, he had to say something. "It's about Matt Casey."
"What about Matt Casey?" Voight asked, not sure where this was going.
Severide paused as he took in a breath. Then he jumped in. "Gabby Dawson is beating the crap out of him."
"What?" Voight asked.
The cat was out of the bag, Severide wasn't sure he'd done the right thing, but he couldn't stay quiet about it any longer. "She's..." he squeezed his eyes shut for a second, the actual words just seemed too weird even though he knew it was the truth. "She's abusing him."
Voight looked at him with no readable emotion on his face. Severide was starting to think he'd made a mistake by disclosing this. Finally Hank replied with, "He told you?"
Kelly shook his head. "He would never admit to something like that."
"You saw it then?"
"No...but I know she is."
"How?" Voight asked.
Kelly reached in his pocket, took out his phone, and scrolled through some pictures, and handed it over to Voight. He watched as the sergeant sat up straighter in his chair to look at them, and saw him absently raise a hand to his mouth in silent horror as the facts started to weigh in on him. Voight grunted under his breath and closed his eyes at one in particular.
"He knows you took these?" Hank asked as he gave Severide back his phone.
"No," Kelly answered.
"That's a problem, Kelly."
"I know...but it's still proof."
"With nothing to corroborate this, it doesn't matter what you know, we can't prove anything to a prosecutor, the States Attorney, you can forget about a jury..."
"Hank, there's got to be something you can do, right?" Severide asked desperately. "We can't just stand by and do nothing."
"How long have you been getting these pictures?" Voight asked.
Kelly got quiet for a minute. "Three months."
"And nothing came of it?" Hank asked.
"Casey won't talk about it, he gets defensive if I try asking...Gabby sure as hell isn't going to talk about it. She's smart, she doesn't hit him in the face, that would be a dead giveaway, she's mainly targeting the places nobody sees regularly."
"And this was what, some random accident?" Voight asked.
Now Severide got defensive. "Do you know what all happens to firefighters on a call? If we're not in the hospital full of smoke or something broken, we walk away black and blue all the time...if you just see it in passing it's easy to not think about it, it's only if you look at them up close and personal you start to realize these are not work related injuries, not the same thing whatsoever."
"Okay," Hank nodded, "does anybody else know?"
"I don't think so," Kelly admitted. "Nobody's letting on if they do..."
"And you've never witnessed her hurting him personally, correct?"
Kelly shook his head. "She must be doing it when they go home after shift, she'd know better than to try it in the firehouse, too many witnesses."
Voight nodded again. "Has Matt Casey said anything to you that indicates what's going on?"
"No...I've tried getting in there to find out...I've stayed at their place for a couple nights, figuring maybe I'd hear or see something...but as long as someone else is in the apartment, Gabby acts like everything's normal."
"But you suspect everything is not normal."
"I know it isn't. Casey's distant, he's defensive, a few times when we're sleeping in our quarters he's woken up screaming...we had all these plans and he just started bailing on everything...I think...I know it doesn't make any sense, I know it sounds crazy."
"Yes it does...which is exactly why abuse keeps happening," Voight said.
Kelly picked his head up a little higher. "Then you believe me?"
"Something obviously happened to Casey," Voight said, "now what's this theory you've got?"
"I know a little about how domestic violence works, they isolate the other person from friends, family, anybody that might tell them to get out."
"Uh huh," Voight replied.
"I think she's trying to isolate him from the rest of us off-shift," Kelly said, "it doesn't matter what night I call or go over, it's not a good time, they're too busy, most times I can't even get in the door. Something is definitely wrong, Hank...and I can't believe Gabby could actually be capable of this, we've known her for years...I thought we knew her..."
Voight looked at him and must've realized there was more going on than just what met the eye.
"What is it, Kelly?" he asked.
Severide closed his eyes and huffed, then looked at Voight and admitted, "I've been wrong about people before, my own people."
Voight nodded. "Kevin Hadley."
Kelly's eyes widened. "You know about that?"
"It is a matter of public record," Voight pointed out.
Kelly shook his head, "I couldn't be that off about someone else at 51..." he sighed, "at least I didn't think I could. It doesn't make sense, Gabby Dawson is not..."
"People aren't always what they seem, Kelly," Voight pointed out.
"But I know her."
"How well?"
"I've known her for almost 10 years."
"How personally do you know her?"
"I..." he sighed, "I don't know."
"Is there something else?" Voight asked.
Severide didn't answer, he just sat there with a blank look in his eyes.
"Kelly?"
"I'm scared for him," he admitted to Voight. "I'm scared what's going to happen to him if something doesn't change. Gabby's a paramedic, she has more medical knowledge and training than the average person, so she knows what it can take to kill a person and how easily it can be done, if she really got mad at him she could use her EMT training to murder him."
"That's a little extreme," Voight tried to get him to calm down.
"But it's not impossible."
"No, it's not," Voight agreed.
"And being a paramedic...it would explain why there'd be no hospital report, if she hurts him, he'd be too embarrassed to go, and she could probably treat it herself...it's a perfect trap to make sure nobody finds out," Kelly said.
Voight nodded. "I know. So just to recap, we've got no complaining victim, no eyewitness who actually saw the abuse, no outcry witness who heard the abuse, no admission, no victim's statement, no hospital records, no police reports, and nobody else thinks there's a problem."
Kelly closed his eyes and sank down in his chair, dreading what Voight was going to say next.
"It's a rock and a hard place, Kelly," Voight told him. "The only way we can proceed as is is off the books, and if we do that, it would take a miracle to piece it all together to actually take it to a States Attorney."
That didn't quite sound like a no. Kelly opened his eyes and looked at Hank hopefully and asked, "And?"
"You're all still working the same shifts, right?"
Kelly nodded. "Yeah."
"Next one's tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
"Alright...while they're out, somebody's going to get into the apartment and plant a camera, we'll see what we can pick up. If we can get video evidence of Gabby assaulting Casey, then we'll move in."
Kelly nodded, desperate for anything to work. "How will you make it stick?"
"I'll deal with that when it happens," Voight told him. He stood up, Kelly stood up, and Voight reached across the desk to shake his hand. "Kelly, thank you for coming in, we're going to figure this out. Casey's very lucky to have you for a friend."
"If he was so lucky I would've done something myself already," Severide responded.
"Hey, it's hard, you can't help somebody if they don't want help and you can't force them to leave, that's why it's nearly impossible to help most victims even though we have the resources and knowhow," Voight said. "Now, we can't force Casey to get away from Gabby, but we're going to help make it happen."
Kelly felt his eyes stinging. "Thank you, Hank."
"Just keep your cool, and don't let on that you know anything," Voight warned him. "We'll take it from here, so when you're working together tomorrow, don't go all 'Kelly Severide' on this. Maybe you don't realize it but your reputation as a shortsighted hothead precedes you."
In light of the situation, that brought a small smile to Kelly's face. Voight assured him, "Casey's gonna be okay, we're going to get him out of this."
Something came to Severide and his eyes shifted to a look of panic as he started to say, "Antonio..."
"Antonio's going to be benched on this assignment, he just doesn't know it," Voight told him.
"He'll never believe it," Kelly said.
"I know," Voight replied, "nobody wants to think their own family can be capable of something so horrible. Don't you worry about him."
"But how're you..."
"You let me worry about that," Voight told him. "You just go back and act like everything's normal."
"How?"
"You've been doing it for three months already," Voight said, "you can manage two more days."
Kelly nodded without a word, he knew Voight was right, he knew he had to keep his cool and not blow it now. He and Voight left the office, and Kelly felt his heart pulsating when he saw Antonio in the bullpen.
"I want to thank you for coming in," Voight told him, and Kelly slowly realized he was saying it for everyone else's benefit, "we'll look into this."
Kelly turned back towards him and stiffly nodded, going along with it, "Okay, thanks." And with that he walked past the others and headed for the stairs.
"What's Severide doing here?" Antonio asked.
"Aside from asking when Erin's coming back? They got called to a crack house during last shift, place burnt to the ground, he thought it might tie in to one of our open investigations we're working with Narcotics on," Voight said, and shrugged, "it's a long shot but I told him we'd check it out."
"Are we actually doing this?" Jay asked Alvin two days later as they sat in a van half a block from Casey's apartment, watching the camera feed and listening to the audio as Matt and Gabby went about their day. The camera had been set up in the living room and covered a good amount of the apartment, leaving the bathroom and bedroom out of the shot to maintain some privacy for the unsuspecting couple.
"We're here, ain't we?" Olinsky replied as he bit into his sandwich.
"This just doesn't make any sense, Dawson's little sister abusing her husband, a firefighter?"
"I'm warning you, Jay, you start on about he can take her, I'm gonna kick your ass," Alvin told him.
"I wasn't going to say that," Halstead replied.
"Good."
"It just seems unreal, the whole thing does...we're investigating Antonio's sister and leaving him in the dark about this?"
"You know the protocol about that, Antonio can't be involved because it's his sister."
"Still, don't we at least owe him the truth?"
"The truth is if she's beating the crap out of Casey, we're going to see it sooner or later, and if that happens, the truth is he's going to have to find a way to deal with it," Alvin said, "until then we're not having him fly off the handle and jeopardize the case by warning her what we're doing."
"But I mean..." Jay shook his head, "how much are we actually going to watch? If they start getting freaky on the couch, I don't need to see that, you know?"
"It wouldn't be a problem if you hadn't slept with her," Alvin said.
Jay looked at him. "How'd you know about that?"
Without missing a beat, Alvin answered, "They don't call us Intelligence for nothing." And with that he took another bite of his sandwich.
Voight's voice came through on the radio. "Anything yet, Jay?"
"Negative," Halstead watched the screen, "they're not in view...I can't even hear them right now. Boss, how long're we going to stay here watching?"
"Until something happens," Voight answered, "as soon as anything does, we move in."
"Copy that," Halstead responded.
"I still can't believe it," he told Olinsky, "Gabby Dawson an abusive wife? It doesn't click."
"Name one time it does click," Alvin responded.
"We've seen them, crack heads, psychos, all the things she is not."
"Yeah that's why we're in this business, right? Because all the criminals walk around with a big neon sign so you know who they are just by looking at them, right?" Al returned. "Think back, how many times a clean cut person been the brains behind a trafficking ring or a family massacre?"
"I know, I know," Jay replied, "but this is different, this is Gabby, this is Antonio's sister, it's practically one of our own."
"That doesn't make her immune," Al told him, "Anymore than Casey being a man and a firefighter makes him immune from what's going on."
"Yeah, I guess...Al? Have you ever actually seen a guy get beat up by a woman?"
"In general? Yeah. His own wife or girlfriend...yeah, they cut deeper because it is personal."
Jay shook his head. "I don't get it...how could a guy just stand there and take it?"
"What's he gonna do, slap the crap out of her to make it stop?" Al asked.
"Come on, he could walk away, he could restrain her."
"Maybe, maybe he could, maybe she's got a knife, he grabs her she cuts him, maybe he grabs her and she knees him in the balls, who's going to be more vulnerable then? What's she going to do when he's on the floor moaning?" Al replied.
"Point taken," Jay said with an uncomfortable look on his face.
There was sound coming from the camera now, Jay watched the monitor, Gabby and Casey were still out of sight but he could hear them arguing.
"Don't you dare walk away from me, Matt Casey!" Gabby's voice rang through the room, "We're not done talking."
"We are not talking," Casey said as he came into the picture, "you never listen to me. So you can talk to yourself."
"Where do you think you're going?" she entered the living room.
"I'm going out before I do something I regret, we both need to cool off," Matt told her.
"Cool off?" she said mockingly, "Is that what you said to me?"
Jay reached for his radio and told Voight, "I think it's about to go down, Boss, they just started screaming at each other."
Voight's voice came back and told the others, "Everybody hold your position and get ready."
"Copy that, Sarge," Atwater's voice came over the radio.
Jay and Alvin sat by, ready to move at a moment's notice, and tensely watched the situation in Casey's apartment quickly escalate. On the video they could see both the Truck lieutenant and the paramedic getting in each other's faces screaming at each other, and though Jay wouldn't say anything, he felt proud of Casey for holding his own in the argument. What he was seeing now was definitely nothing like the Gabby he knew when he was working undercover at Molly's and it was very difficult for him to watch.
"I'm sick of this!" Casey told her, actually lunging in her face, "it's obvious you don't respect me."
"Respect?" Gabby repeated in a disbelieving tone. "You want to talk respect?"
Gabby's voice hit a screeching decibel in the same instant that she hit him in the face, the sound erupting through the apartment like a gunshot, followed immediately by Casey falling on his knees with a hand pressed to his cheek and a moan of pain escaping him.
"That's it, everybody move!" Jay hollered into his radio.
He and Olinsky hopped out of the van, Voight was already out of his car and storming up to the door, Ruzek and Atwater were running up from the corner. On the porch the screams coming from inside the apartment were easily heard through the door, now it sounded like somebody was being murdered.
Voight kicked the door open and entered with his gun drawn, the others piled in behind him.
"Chicago P.D., get your hands up!"
There was no way to tell what had happened in those few seconds between what Jay and Al saw on the monitor, to what they were seeing now, but it was obvious that something bad had happened. There was a shattered vase on the floor a few inches from Casey, who was face down on the floor with his arms over his head as if fending off another blow, some of his blood staining the carpet, and Gabby stood a couple feet from him with a kitchen knife in hand, and a deer in headlights look on her face at the intruders who suddenly stormed the apartment.
"Gabby, put the knife down and get your ass on the ground," Voight warned her.
"What the hell?" she demanded to know as she tossed the knife. "What're you doing here?"
Voight's attention instead was drawn to the fact that Casey hadn't moved from where he crumpled on the floor.
"Take her," he called over to Olinsky as he pocketed his sidearm and moved over to Matt.
"Gabriela Dawson, you are under arrest for assault and battery, put your hands behind your back and turn around."
"Is this some kind of joke?" she asked.
"You see anybody laughing?"
Voight crouched down on the floor beside Casey and pressed a hand against his shoulder. "Matt...Matt..." Voight rolled him over, Casey's eyes were all but closed and a low guttural moan was the only sound emitting from somewhere in his throat.
"What the hell did you do, Gabby?" he asked as he lowered Casey's arms and felt around Casey's scalp for any cuts or contusions.
"What's wrong?" Jay asked.
Voight reached for his radio and told Jay, "Try and make him respond." He said into the radio, "This is Sergeant Hank Voight, Chicago P.D., roll an ambo immediately to 911-"
The room was a tornado of mass confusion between everybody talking as they tried to assess the situation, Gabby screaming and struggling as Atwater had to help Olinsky get her handcuffed, Alvin nonchalantly continuing to read her her rights, and everybody wondering what the hell had just happened? Jay pressed a thumb against one of Casey's eyelids and raised to to look at his eye. It was responsive to the light, he tried to squeeze his eye shut under the pressure of the thumb holding it open, but other than that there was nothing.
"Casey can you hear me? Casey?"
There was nothing.
Voight had gone with Casey to the hospital, and before the ambo took off he'd stressed to the paramedics not taking Casey to Chicago Med, unless he was going to die in the extra time it would take, they were to rush him to Lakeshore. Not as many people there knew Casey anymore, there'd be a lot fewer questions asked, and assuming Casey would recover from whatever had happened to him, Voight knew he'd appreciate not making what happened to him the business of everybody he knew and saw on a regular basis at Med. During the ambulance ride, they were halfway to the hospital when Casey stirred on the gurney, then turned to the side and threw up, just missing hitting the paramedic who was working on him.
"What's happening?" Voight wanted to know.
"Possible concussion," the paramedic answered.
Voight looked at Casey and saw blood was slowly trickling out of his mouth and down his chin.
"What's that?"
The paramedic forced Casey's mouth open to take a look, then concluded, "Busted lip."
"That from the attack too?"
"Could be, hard to say."
Voight hollered to the front seat, "How much longer?"
"We'll be there in five."
Voight grunted to himself as he reached in his pocket, took out his phone, and dialed a number.
"Kelly...we got him...EMS is taking him to Lakeshore...his condition?" he looked down at Casey and answered, "We'll know better when you get over there."