Disclaimer- NBC Owns Chicago fire. The writers of the show, are beyond my control. I'm making Matt Casey happy even if it isn't with Dawson.

Or, my reaction to season 6's ending, grabbing a note book full of ideas, and typing

Waking before the alarm for once.

Oh, joy.

No, that would only be true on a non shift day.

Samara groaned and stretched, and rolled over. She pressed a kiss to Matt's neck.

He mumbled something unintelligible , still mostly asleep.

She smiled at his sleep mussed form, then got up to take a shower and make coffee.

After a shower and dressing for the day, she sat at the kitchen table, taking a moment to breathe.

Matt joined her, his own hair still damp from his own shower, lured by the smell of coffee.

She handed a cup- made to his taste- to him.

He hummed in appreciation as he drank. It was the little things.

Sam, meanwhile scrambled eggs, heated turkey-apple sausage, grabbed toast as it popped up, and soon had a plate for both of them.

They ate, made plans for the weekend, and just enjoyed being together.

The second call that morning tossed the world upside down. What they thought was a fire at an apartment complex, turned out to be a call for help in a different way.

In an apartment block across the way, there was a father with a gun, angered over the fact that his ex-wife got custody of his son and daughter.

He wasn't going to give them back, and the mother had come after them. The father pulled her into the apartment at gunpoint

Another woman had seen her get pulled in, and triggered the fire system by holding a burning paper close to the sensor. She told them what was going on, and they called in PD backup.

It turned against them, and it was a whole bunch of chaos.

Sam, sick of things, took matters into her own hands.

She rushed the asshole.

Head-butting him in the solar plexus, catching his toddler son before the little one could hit the floor.

The gun went off in the fallout, there was a terrifying moment where Casey was sure she'd been hit.

She was blessedly unhurt, the little boy in her arms screaming only because the gun had gone off and had hurt delicate ears

Sylvie and Sam took the kids to Med to be checked over, and 81 rode back in silence.

Casey saw some of the fallout, saw Chief Boden giving Sam a dressing down through the door of his office.

But she stayed well away from Matt.

At home, he felt that they could face it head on.

She was always different on shift, it was like she put armor on that he couldn't break through.

At the home they shared, it was different.

Here, she ranted about the stupidity and cruelty of the city.

Here, she cried about those she tried to save and failed to.

And he was there for her and-

it didn't take it away, but it was enough.

"Sam, We need to talk. About today."

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

Suddenly he's back at the beginning of their relationship, the first month they'd lived together.

Remembering his own moment of scaring the life out of her. Of having to jump for a ladder outside a window, and Slipping. Of dangling above a drop that could have been deadly.

How quiet and distant she'd been then.

"My god, Matty- when you slipped, I felt it, felt what life without you would be.

I'm hoping I never feel it again.

Our jobs-

I can't ask you not to risk it. It's all part of what we decided to do with our lives, and it's who you are.

All I can ask, and it's just asking- Not a vow, not a promise- Just- Come home at the end of the day?

It would be enough for me."

Sam's shaking, teary. Waiting for him. To condemn, for being who she is.

No, that's not who he is. There is still so much to learn, but he'll keep choosing her.

He steps forward, and reaches for her.

Sam is still shaking a little but Matt just holds her, just rocks them a bit, keeps Sam held tight, right against him.

As long as he can hold her everything is all right.

A/N-I hope you enjoyed!

Please leave a comment if you like. or have ideas. or anything, really.

Y'know, Dawsey's my canon OTP for Chicago Fire, seconded by Stellaride.

But the writers won't let them stay happy, so it gives me some freedom to write what i want, because only the writers knows what's next.