Sorrows Drowned

A/N: So naturally this story won't actually feature Gabby Dawson, but it also will not include Stella Kidd. Here's a story that breaks away from any and all ideas of Gabby/Casey repairing their relationship and instead focuses on Casey moving forward without her. If you weren't too broken up about Gabby leaving the show, this might be the story for you. Hope everybody enjoys, all standard disclaimers apply, don't own, don't sue, please read and review.

"Puerto Rico, heh?" Christopher Herrmann asked that night at Molly's as everybody was gathered around Matt Casey as he finished recapping the events of the past couple days. "Ah geez."

Casey was seated on a bar stool, had already had a few drinks, and looked two steps away from his face hitting the bar top. He'd wanted to give everyone fair warning incase they didn't get the message that Gabby would not be showing up for duty on next shift. Hard as it was to talk about, he'd called everyone to Molly's so he could tell them all at once and get it over with.

He made eye contact with nobody, just focused on his bottle and responded, "Yep. I tried calling her, left a dozen messages...she said she's not coming back."

The crew from Firehouse 51 had this meeting with an additional guest, Gabby's brother Antonio, who was seated on the next stool and took in the lieutenant's whole story before voicing his own thoughts on the matter.

"I tried reaching out to her, she basically told me the same thing," he said. "I'm sorry, Matt, I wish I could say something more definite. I don't know what's going through her head right now...just give it time, she'll come to her senses."

Matt grunted something incoherent in response, his eyes appeared to be focusing on something further and further away the more time passed.

"We're really sorry, Matt," Sylvie told him. "I'm sure she'll come back."

"She's right, Casey," Otis added, "you guys have been through everything together. This is just another stumbling block."

"Besides, she'd have to come back either way, if she really doesn't want to be in a relationship anymore, she'd have to come back to file for divorce," Brett added.

That earned her a death glare from everyone else in the immediate vicinity.

"Sorry," she said, mentally kicking herself. Ever since the call she and Gabby took the other day, she hadn't been quite all there.

Casey grunted again and raised his hands to his face and grumbled something else unintelligible.

"Guys," Herrmann addressed the group standing around the lieutenant and less than subtly motioned that they back off and give Casey some space to take in what had happened.

Antonio reached over as he stood up and clapped a hand on Matt's shoulder sympathetically, "You need anything, man, you just let me know, okay? You're still family."

"Thanks," Matt responded as he placed his hands back on the counter.

"We'll see you later, man," Cruz said as he and Otis also moved to leave.

Slowly, everybody backed off from Casey and left him to his own devices as he remained seated on the bar stool just barely hanging in there.

"Sorry about that, Casey," Herrmann said, "It's foot-mouth disease season, nobody knows what to say, this has taken us all by surprise."

Casey rubbed his eyes and said with a groan, "I understand, Herrmann."

"Can I get you anything else?"

Matt touched his bottle and said, "Keep 'em coming."

"Can I call you a cab when this is over?" Herrmann asked lightly.

"I'm fine, Herrmann."

"Yeah, I know...you got it, lieutenant," Christopher said as he went to get another beer.

Matt finished his current beer and steadily went to work on the second one, trying to ignore the bright lights and the loud music and the sounds of other people, especially couples, out having a good time enjoying themselves. Through the corner of his eye he was able to recognize the image of Kelly Severide, standing off the side, just as he had all evening since Casey came in. Even through just the corner of his eye, Casey could see Severide had his hands in his pockets, one foot in front of the other, and his back against the wall.

"What do you want, Severide?" he asked. He knew Kelly had been hanging around through the whole conversation, waiting for something, so he decided to just get it over with.

Silently, somberly, Kelly walked over to the Truck lieutenant. He looked at Matt, and finally asked him, hesitantly, "Can I speak frankly? You won't bite my head off if you don't like it?"

"Go ahead, Severide," Casey said as he took another drink, "Kick me while I'm down. I'm getting used to it."

"No, Casey, not that," Kelly said as he sat down next to him.

If Matt had been in a more sober state of mind, he might have taken better notice of the wide eyed look on Severide's face, a look that might've been more appropriate on an amateur about to tight rope walk over the Grand Canyon. As it was, he barely noticed the borderline-petrified look on the Squad lieutenant's face as he prepared to jump into what he had planned, to hell with how the Truck lieutenant would react.

"We all go back a long way, and I love Gabby," Kelly told him, "but let's face it, she has problems."

"Ya think?" Casey asked as he took another swig of his beer.

"I mean it, Casey," Severide said. "And you knew it, you had to know it. Everything always had to be her way, no matter what anybody else thought, she was more controlling than any other woman on the planet." He could see he wasn't really getting through, so he cut to one part of the chase. "Remember that whole alderman fiasco?"

"What about it?" Casey asked.

"I told you back then if I were any kind of friend, I'd talk you out of it," Kelly told him. "That wasn't your idea, that was Gabby needing to have her own way, as usual. And what came out of it? A lot of grief for you. The billboards, the character assassination, she didn't care because it wasn't directed at her. And how about having to pick between your First Responders' bill to help every firefighter and paramedic who gets injured on the job, and Gabby bitching about you're not sensitive enough to her dad's needs while he's leeching off of you guys?"

"Severide, I'm really not in the mood," Matt said.

"What about now, Casey?" Kelly asked. "What about last night?"

Matt looked straight ahead and wouldn't answer. For a split second, Severide saw Casey's right eye, bright from the reflection of the lights, and the next second he dropped his head on his folded arms and started sobbing. Kelly almost felt sorry for opening his mouth in the first place, but it was obvious from watching Casey that this was inevitable. He'd likely been holding everything together since Gabby walked out, and now, probably especially with a little liquid help in letting his guard down, everything just came crashing down.

Kelly reached over and patted Casey on the back, tried to think of something to say that would help, but what the hell did he know? He'd never been married, not really anyway, certainly hadn't been through near as much stuff as Casey had with Dawson.

"Hey, buddy, it's alright," he told Matt, "I know it's bad now, but you'll get through this." With his free hand, Kelly signaled to Herrmann, who came over and dropped a handful of cocktail napkins on the bar, and exited without a word.

"Come on, Casey," Severide more or less pulled his friend back into something resembling an upright position, and handed him one of the napkins. "Come on, I'll take you home."

Matt folded the napkin over and blew his nose, and Kelly inched back on his stool as it sounded like somebody trying to force a tube of toothpaste through the holes in a sieve.

"I can't go back," Casey said, "everything there reminds me of Gabby."

Finding his voice again, he discarded the napkin and told Severide, "It's ironic, isn't it? All I ever wanted was to have kids...now Gabby walked out on me because she wanted them more than I did."

"You wanted her safe more than you wanted kids," Kelly told him.

"I still want kids, I told her..." Casey sucked in a choked breath, "we could adopt...we could get a surrogate...she wasn't having it. If she couldn't have the baby herself..."

"I told you, everything has to be exactly what she wants and to hell with reality interfering or the consequences," Kelly said. "Now think about this one...Matt, stay with me." He wanted to make sure he had at least some of the lieutenant's attention as he said, "What do you think Gabby would've done if it had been a woman they treated on call, who the doctor said it was too risky for her to get pregnant, and she decided to do it anyway? What do you think Gabby would say then?"

Casey thought about it, and shook his head. "I don't know."

"She would be on that woman's case to be thankful for the family she already had and stop being a stupid, arrogant bitch who's going to kill herself to prove a point," Kelly said. "That's what she'd say, and you know it."

"She wouldn't say that," Matt told him.

"In so many words, no, but you know she'd be thinking that exact thing," Severide replied. "If she's self centered enough she wants to die having a baby, that's her problem, but if she does, that's not on you, you did the right thing, buddy, you put her health first."

"And she left me," Casey said. "What sense does that make?"

"I told you, man, she's got problems," Kelly said. "It never mattered how bad an idea was, if she came up with it, she had to have everything her way, and the second she wanted it. And you know it, how many times did she bite your head off because you didn't automatically agree with her? Did she even bother to ever hear your side out?"

Matt picked up another napkin and quickly dabbed at his eyes, trying to regain some appearance of being 'alright'.

"Matt, you're the only one that can answer this because you were the only one there," Kelly told him. "Do you think it's over, or is there a chance that you two can reconcile this?"

Casey turned to him, and for the rest of his life Severide would never forget that look on Casey's face as he barely managed to choke out, "Kelly...it's over."

With that admission came a new batch of sobs wracking through him. Severide pulled Casey towards him and hugged his friend. They had their professional and personal differences and often were likely to bite each other's head off sooner than anything, but that didn't change the fact they were friends, despite the turf war that often broke out between Truck and Squad at 51, they were brothers on the job, and it was killing him seeing Casey like this. He was well aware of the fact there were two sides to each story, and that Dawson had her own reasons for doing what she did, but he thought it was pretty low that she could storm out like this and leave everyone else to pick up the pieces of the mess she had made. It had been his understanding that something went wrong on the last call she and Brett had gone out on, and those two had gotten into it as well, only it had been Brett who'd accused Dawson of not having her back. It seemed to Kelly that if Gabby had actually stuck around instead of running 2,000 miles away like a coward, that she would have in time effectively isolated herself from everyone she worked with. He wasn't sure what her problem was but in a way, he was glad she was gone, at least now they could start being honest about everything without her trademark Gabby Dawson death stares for having her feelings hurt or her 'authority' undermined.

"It's okay, buddy, it's okay," Severide told the man who was now crying into his shoulder. "Things will get better, trust me."

Kelly was not oblivious to the fact that some of the bar patrons were looking at them, and he didn't care. If anybody wanted to make something of what was going on, he'd kick all their asses. And as if a cue, Herrmann came back over and without saying a word, got the message across asking if there was anything he should do to help. Kelly shook his head and motioned for Herrmann to let him do this alone. Christopher nodded in response and went back to his work.

After a few minutes, Casey pulled himself back together and adjusted his seated position on the bar stool. Kelly ordered them both a couple more beers and joined his friend.

"Look, I know it's hard to deal with right now, but it's Dawson's loss, not yours," Kelly told him. "To hell with her."

"That's not a nice thing to say about somebody who worked in our House for so many years and was part of the family, Severide," Casey said.

"It's true. She's forcing me to pick between you and her...I pick you. Hey, you're more fun anyway. She and I couldn't go out and meet women together...Shay and I used to...then she started going to clubs that wouldn't let me in, you and me, we could go out and have a good time meeting women. And you could find the right one now. You can still have kids, you can still have the family you want, Gabby just wasn't the woman to have it with. Like I said, her loss, you can do better." He quickly amended that statement. "You will do better. You're a great guy, you could have any woman you want."

"I wanted Gabby. We'd been through everything together, she was the one there for me through everything, Hallie leaving me, the whole mess with Voight, when Hallie was killed, when Heather got arrested and I had to take care of her boys, the thing with Jack Nesbitt, Katya's murder..."

"Excuse me for saying so, Casey, but I think you just got used to her company," Kelly told him. "She was always there so you never had to look for anyone else, it was easy."

Matt looked at him skeptically and responded, "Tell me again, Kelly, how many women have you been with?"

Severide laughed awkwardly and remarked, "I never said I was looking for commitment, I wasn't looking to get married."

"You did get married," Casey reminded him.

"Yeah, drunken night in Vegas wedding, age old story, 90% of which are annulled all the time, you know that," Kelly said. "That was a whim, it wasn't anything like you were looking for with Gabby."

Casey thought about it for a minute and finally said, "I guess you're right."

Kelly was worried what might happen if Matt had too much time to dwell on what was going on, and thought of something. He stood up and told Casey, as he grabbed the other lieutenant by the wrist, "Come on, Casey, let's get out of here, I know just the thing to lift your spirits."

But Casey wouldn't move, and he told Severide, "I'm not going with you to a cheap strip club."

"Oh come on, Casey!" Kelly said. "It always worked to cheer Shay up."

"Incase you didn't notice, Severide, I'm not Shay," Matt told him.

"Oh believe me, I noticed," Kelly replied.

"No offense," Matt said as he took another drink of his beer, "but I think I have just a little higher standards than Shay."

"No offense," Kelly returned, "but your standards are how you wound up here."

And that was when Kelly knew he'd said the wrong thing.

Luckily Casey didn't seem to notice, and instead he responded, "Fair enough."

Severide decided to try again, "Come on, Matt, let's get out of here and go to another bar."

"I don't want to go to another bar, I can stay here and get falling down drunk just as easily, thank you," Casey told him.

"Who's talking about getting drunk?" Severide asked. "I mean let's go to another bar where we don't know the people working there and pick up a couple waitresses."

Casey snorted and asked, "What is that, the Kelly Severide guide to dating?"

"Hey, what is it they say? Fall off one horse, best thing to do is find another one and get back on," Kelly said.

"That sounds like something you'd say alright," Matt started to slur his words, "I was right, asking you for relationship advice is like asking for fitness tips from Mouch."

Kelly looked at him with a sincere smile and told him, "Casey, I promise if you come with me, before the night's over you won't even be thinking about Dawson."

"I'm probably going to regret this," Casey picked up his bottle and drained the last few ounces of beer in it. "Okay, let's go."

"You're sure?" Kelly asked.

"Yeah."

"You're sure it's over?"

Casey nodded.

"You trust me?" Kelly asked.

Casey shrugged cluelessly.

"Okay," Severide said, "give me your hand, Casey."

"Why?" Matt asked as he raised his right hand.

Severide reached around it and grabbed Casey's left wrist. "This hand."

Casey watched in something akin to disbelief as Severide pulled the wedding band off his ring finger.

"I'll hold onto this incase you change your mind," Kelly said as he pocketed it. "Trust me, women are more interested without that."

"Speaking from experience?" Casey asked.

"Herrmann," Severide reached in his wallet and put some bills on the counter, "if this doesn't cover it, put the rest on my tab."

"Wait a minute," Christopher said as he came over towards them, "you're the designated driver, Severide? Did hell freeze over after all?"

"Pray for me, Herrmann," Casey slurred as Kelly helped him towards the exit.

"I think you'll need it!" Herrmann called after the lieutenant.

"Let's go, we got a long night ahead of us," Kelly said.

"So where're we going?" Casey asked Severide as they walked out into the night.