forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning desmond tutu
for last year's words belong to last year's language; and next year's words await another voice ts eliot
—
She wakes up to the sun on her face, its rays sliding in through the slats of the half-open blinds. She can feel his breath on her neck and feel the weight of his arm as it presses her into the mattress. He's always ran warm and right now all she can feel, can smell, can taste is him, him, him.
She hasn't slept this well since November, she thinks.
There's something hanging in the balance and settling in her bones. It's a feeling of safety and content and hope. There's no hint of the closure that she had been searching for. There's no finality, no this is the last one. Because when she whispered into the space between them, stuttering and stopping and breaking her heart all over again, "This is - this just a reaction to the stress of the day," she was giving him a way out, giving herself a way out. His shaky reply, though, lights a fire in her that she thought they'd put out months ago because, "Absolutely," shouldn't sound like please, god no.
She's got a half-formed thought about rolling out of bed, grabbing her clothes and sneaking out the door like the one night stand they imagined this would be when he lightly whacks her with one of the pillows that fell to the floor during the night, grumbling about how she's thinking too loudly and god, Gabby just go back to sleep. Severide's not even here.
She settles back into the mattress, not really because of his sleepy mutterings, but more because they had somehow managed to end up unconsciously on their old sides of the bed.
—
Brett corners her next shift, asking questions and flitting about. She deflects and shrugs, she's always been good at building defenses, saying she was helping out Antonio because the kids were with him for the weekend and she hasn't seen them in forever. There's a furrow between Brett's eyebrows and she's sure that Herrmann - who's been listening to the entire conversation - doesn't believe the fabrication for a second, but the topic is dropped and everything is back to normal.
Or, well, 51's new normal, at least.
Back to (old) normal would be a ring on her finger, an EMT jacket around her shoulders, and a different blonde badgering her for answers.
God, sometimes she really misses Shay.
She brushes shoulders with Casey and makes jokes with the rest of Truck 81 and smiles as wide as her slowly mending heart can allow.
—
It's her night to close up Molly's. She's already sent Herrmann packing to Cindy and the kids and Otis has taken the cash from the night. He walks in when it's just her quietly singing to the radio and wiping down the counter.
He walks around the bar and grabs the broom, efficiently cleaning up the debris left from the local cops and firefighters that make up Molly's weekly crowd.
She leans against the bar, a small smile on her face as she watches him work. She wonders if they ever fell out of love. She wonders if she ever stopped loving him. Or if he ever stopped loving her. She wonders if this should be as easy as it is, after everything that has happened.
"You didn't have to help," she calls out over the music.
He flashes her a quick grin. "Wanted to. How else would I spend a Friday night."
"Oh, I don't know, throwing back beers and watching a hockey game with Severide?"
He crosses the distance between them and leans across the counter. His hand slides along her jaw, fingers slipping between her hair as he pulls her towards him for a kiss.
"I can just watch the game here," his eyes twinkle as he nods towards the TV in the corner. She whips the towel in her hands at him and simply laughs.
—
She barely makes it out of her gear before she's running to the bathroom and emptying her stomach. The smell of ash settles into her hair and skin and god she needs to get it off.
She begs off the rest of shift, claiming a stomach virus or food poisoning. "I was a paramedic, remember? I know these things."
Matt lets her leave without question.
She changes out of her gear and into regular clothes and tries not to tremble when she drives from the firehouse to the nearest Jewel-Osco and shuffles down the aisle like a sixteen year-old, ducking her head so that her hair covers most of her face. There's over two dozen different boxes, all brightly colored, and she's so overwhelmed that she grabs four in a row and almost runs back to the checkout line.
She never thought she'd have to do this alone. It scares her more than running into a burning building ever will.
—
Brett and the new girl drop by their place. The new medic talks a lot about things no one cares about. If she was still PIC, she thinks she would have already booted her from 61, claiming absolute annoyance. Brett gets along well enough with her, though, and the two, with their blonde and brunette heads tilted towards each other as they share comments, make her ache for her own lost partner. The one who would have sat Gabby down and went to the drugstore and picked the right kind of pregnancy test and a bottle of tequila just in case and then would squeeze her hand as they waited for the results because who knew your entire life hinged on peeing on a stick, jeez. She wasn't supposed to do this alone because at the very least, Shay was supposed to back her up.
New girl asks how she's doing, not-so-subtly implying, "the Truck lieutenant asked us to drop by if we had time, he seems mighty worried about you."
Gabby's had her phone clutched in her hand all afternoon, poised to call him but chickening out at the last second. Parts of her don't want to tell him, don't want him to know at all but there's a bigger part of her - the part that's still in love with him, the part that can still feel the phantom weight of her beautiful engagement ring, the part that only wanted him after she thought she was going to die - that wants to tell him because this is something that he's wanted for ages and it is something that she has always wanted to give him.
It's when Brett walks out of the bathroom and opens her mouth that her eyes go wide and she rushes frantically towards her roommate. "Don't tell anyone," she pleads and Sylvie nods twice and gathers her in a hug and maybe, just maybe, Gabby's not as alone as she thought.
—
She's a paramedic by trade and a firefighter by choice. Four home pregnancy tests don't cut it for her.
She uses the same OB/GYN as Shay did two years ago, watchful eyes tracking every husband and wife pair with excitement on their faces. She bonds with another woman all alone. One who seems younger and more scared than herself.
When they finally call her back, draw her blood, and take an ultrasound, everything seems just a bit more real and she wishes right at that second that Matt was sitting next to her, his eyes shining with the same love and excitement as the new dads she saw in the waiting room.
The doctor prints a picture of the sonogram for her and her fingers tremble as she reaches out for it.
—
If there's one thing that she's always been good at, it's avoiding matters of real importance. It's bit her in the ass more times than she can count and has caused one too many rifts in friendships. She avoids Matt's calls for three days until Kelly comes knocking on her door with a few choice words.
She needs her best friend, and Kelly Severide might just be the closest thing she's got.
He grabs her jacket and a random bottle from her liquor cabinet and pushes her out the door, calling out to Brett that they'll be back later.
They wind up at Museum Campus, sprawled on the cement steps between the Shedd and the Adler, with the Lake stretching out in front of them and the city's skyline to the west. She's always loved Chicago, can't imagine living anywhere else. The crime and corruption and heavy hearts that line the streets still pale in comparison to the nooks and crannies that have made her who she is.
Kelly cracks open the bottle of whatever he managed to steal from her and takes a swig before offering it to her.
"I can't," she murmurs, voice almost lost to the crashing of waves on water and the buzz of school groups. As reckless and cocky as Severide is, Gabby also knows how perceptive and intelligent he can be, too.
"More for me," he replies flippantly. "You can be the DD."
"And, what? Dump you on my couch?"
"Nope. I'm gonna get drunk. You're gonna drive me home and then you're gonna stay and tell Casey what's up so he stops stomping around the apartment."
"Unbelievable," she growls and pulls her jacket tighter around her body. She doesn't remember who taught whom this trick, but she's pretty sure Shay's coaching Severide from the dead on how to deal with a grumpy Gabriela Dawson.
They're silent for almost twenty minutes before Kelly starts talking. "So when did this start up again? Or was it a one-time thing? Or do you guys have like a place on the side?"
Gabby narrows her eyes and she can feel as her lips tighten into a frown. "A little over a month ago. After that thing at Chicago Med. It was just for that weekend. Really. And, well, a few times that Brett picked up an extra shift at the house or when you weren't around."
"Is it serious?"
"Isn't it always between Matt and me?"
"I don't know, he's always been pretty quiet about your guys' thing. Probably feels protective or some shit." There's a pause and Kelly takes another swig from the bottle. Gabby looks over, there's about a third left and, well fuck, he took her Malort. "You know he'd be ecstatic, right? He's always wanted kids. Talked about it since Andy first came through 51 yelling about how he knocked Heather up."
"Yeah, I remember."
"You guys would be great parents. Way better than when Shay and I were thinking about it."
Gabby looks over her shoulder. There's a woman and a labrador running down the sidewalk. Two CPD officers are on bike patrol. A yellow school bus is idling in front of the Planetarium, kids filing up its stairs.
"The timing sucks, though," she remarks.
"Yeah, but yours always has."
She shoves his shoulder for that before commandeering the bottle of schnapps and standing up.
"Come on, guess I'm driving your drunk ass home."
He turns on the radio to the classic rock station and mutters on about how jealous Shay would be right now because he's got a front row seat to some classic Casey and Dawson drama and she doesn't. Gabby doesn't know how she gets them home safe but soon enough she's pulling up in front of the apartment complex and killing the engine of Severide's car and dear god she hopes she's not shaking as badly as her heart is racing.
—
He's sitting on the couch she picked out almost a year ago. The Blackhawks game is on the TV and he's holding a bottle of beer from its neck. She fumbles with closing the door as Kelly displaces most of his weight on her shoulders and making her grunt. Matt's up in a second, pulling their friend towards his room.
"Were you at Molly's or something?" he asks, after closing the door and moving to stand next to her. "I, uh, I know what tomorrow is."
She shakes her head, "Wha—? Oh no, we were by the Shedd. He stole my bottle of Malort. I told him I'd drive him home."
"Right," he drawls and she watches his face crease with concern. "You wanna stay around? I was just thinking of ordering pizza."
"Make it a Lou's and you've got yourself a deal."
Casey grins, "One Chicago Classic coming right up."
The Blackhawks are just starting play in the third period when she starts talking. She's been tense all night and she knows there are better ways to do this, cuter ways, more meaningful ways, but she's kept it a secret for two weeks now and she can't, she can't keep it quiet anymore. Not when it changes their entire future. Not when she's risking it all every single time they get a call. He had offered her a beer, her favorite kind, the one that's such a small-time IPA that only bar owners would really buy, and she'd had to turn it down.
She waits for a commercial break, turns around in her spot on the couch so that she's facing him, staring into the eyes that have made countless promises and offered endless reassurances.
It falls from her lips, "I'm pregnant," and everything changes.
—
It's the next morning when she looks at the calendar that she understands how forgiveness and hope are so tied together because it's May 13, 2015 and she wonders if everything has finally come full circle.
—
notes: just wanted to get this out before it got jossed by the rest of the season. it wouldn't leave me alone because we all know something's gotta give from that night dawson and casey just shared. / bonus points to whoever can spot the chicago trivia!