To All a Good Night
"Kelly Severide, get over here and get away from that window," Rhonda Lind called to the Squad lieutenant who stood by the front window looking out into the night. "Pacing around and wearing a hole in the floor is not going to make Casey come home any quicker."
Severide had called the blonde psychiatrist who bore so strong a resemblance to his best friend, Leslie Shay, that it was unnerving to everybody who knew about it, and asked her to come over to Casey's house, where he was currently staying, because he thought he was going to lose his mind staying home by himself all night.
"I can't help it," Kelly said as he finally pulled away from the window, and subsequently from watching the snow fall outside, as it had done for the last several hours, and turned back towards Rhonda, who was untangling a string of lights to wrap around Casey's tree. "It's his first date since he was attacked, anything could be happening."
"It's been almost nine months," Rhonda pointed out.
"I know."
She looked at him and asked, "He hasn't been on a date in nine months?"
Kelly shrugged his shoulders. "He didn't date much before that either. What can I say? Guy never does anything the easy way, he always has to be looking for the 'right' one, whatever that is."
"So who's this one?" Rhonda asked as she plugged two cords together and checked them both.
"I don't know," Severide shook his head, "some woman he met on a call, they ran into each other after shift..."
"Never a dull moment in your line of work, is it? How many women have you met that way?" she asked.
When Rhonda acted as an off-the-books therapist to Severide and Casey, she was very reserved, and never hinted at anything she was thinking, and when she did, she did it in such a neutral tone that it was impossible to guess which way her genuine thoughts swayed. When she was not in session with them, she was brash and very opinionated, very much like Leslie...sometimes even more than Leslie if that was even possible. So far Casey hadn't had the privilege of knowing her that way, but Kelly had known her for several years and they'd briefly dated so he was very well acquainted with it, and still found himself on the receiving end of it from time to time, and had been on the receiving end of several times already that night.
"Are you sure Matt isn't going to mind us decorating the tree while he's out?" Rhonda asked as she wrapped the string around one side of the bottom, and waited for Kelly to take the cord behind the tree and cover the other half.
"I told him I'd get the first layer done tonight, then he can do the more personal stuff tomorrow," Severide answered as he took the cord of colored lights from her and made his way around the back of the tree with them.
"So how has Matt been doing?" she asked as she took the lights back from him.
"Come on, Rhonda, you see both of us twice a week," Kelly said, "I'm starting to think we're running out of things to discuss together in your 'group therapy'."
"Yes but I'm also aware you two don't necessarily reveal everything when you come to see me," she replied as she went around again and passed the string back to him. "How is he?"
"As far as I know he's doing fine," he answered, "it's been weeks since the last time I heard of him having any nightmares."
"He doesn't still wake up thinking Cardoza is in the room with him?"
"No."
"So what do you think's going to happen on his date that's worth sitting up worrying about?" Rhonda asked.
Kelly paused as he took the lights from her again, "I don't know...he's been through so much in the last year, and he doesn't have a great track record of any relationships working out...I just want this to go right for him, is that so weird?"
"It's commendable," she replied, "but you have to remember Matt has his own life, just because you two are roommates doesn't mean you have to hold his hand every step of the way."
"I do not."
Rhonda stuck her head behind the tree and looked at him knowingly and asked, "Did you ever sit up when he had a date before?"
"No," Kelly reluctantly admitted.
"What do you think is going to happen?"
"I don't know...but if anything would..."
"Yes?" she asked.
He looked at her and said simply, "Somebody should be there for him."
"I agree," she told him.
"Then why are you on my case?" he asked.
"Because I know you, Kelly," she responded. "It's okay to be there for him but you can't go overboard about it."
Severide got the last of the lights strung up around the top of the tree and he and Rhonda went over to the couch to sit down. Rhonda had made a big bowl of popcorn and got a needle threaded to string it with and was halfway through one string almost eight feet long, when she noticed Severide heading towards the window again and she called over to him, "Get over here, Kelly." When he came towards her she put the huge bowl on his lap and told him, "Your brain isn't good for too much tonight, but your hands should still be of some use, you get this one finished and I'm going to go make another bowl to start on and maybe between the two of us we can get this thing finished before Groundhog's Day."
Kelly rolled his eyes and dug through the bowl for the end of the string and found it needle first.
"Yeow!"
In the kitchen, which was on the other side of the wall right behind his head, he heard the sound of kernels being dumped in the hot air popper, then heard it roar to life as Rhonda plugged it in. After a couple minutes the incessant pop-pop-pop-pop-pop started, and sounded like something was about to explode, then it was over and he heard the machine whine as it died down, and Rhonda reentered the room with a bowl full that was just as big as the one she gave him.
"Why don't they just make these artificial too?" Kelly asked as he pushed the needle through a piece of popcorn and dragged it and the half dozen behind it clear over to the end of the available thread.
"Huh?" Rhonda asked as she picked up the spool of thread and another needle off the coffee table.
"As much work as these are to make, why don't they just make artificial popcorn strings? That way it looks like the real thing, but it doesn't crumble into little pieces and you don't have to remake them every year," Severide said.
Rhonda threaded the needle, then pulled the loose end through the eye, and the spool fell on the floor trying to keep up with it, when she finally decided it was long enough, she pressed her thumb and forefinger on one hand against the needle to keep it in place, and ran the two ends of the thread together side by side until the cut off end was at equal length to the spool on the other side, she cut it off the spool and knotted the two ends together to begin another string.
"Most likely they don't do that simply because popcorn is the cheapest food in existence," she told him. "You buy a three pound bag for two bucks and fill up the Christmas tree with about ten cent's worth, if they manufactured artificial strings then you'd be shelling out $20 to look like the real stuff you make for a quarter."
"It'd be a lot quicker," Kelly said, and winced as he stuck his thumb with the needle again, "less painful too."
"Yeah, but then what would we be doing all night to keep you from pacing around the whole house?" Rhonda asked as she reached for the remote and turned on the TV, "besides, it gives us something to do during the all night Rankin/Bass marathon."
Kelly snorted in response.
Rhonda found the channel she was looking for and set the remote down as "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" came back from a commercial break.
"I don't know about you," she said, "but I always thought the Hanna-Barbera Christmas specials were better. Yogi Bear, Casper, had a lot of them for the Flintstones. I wonder why they never show them anymore?"
"Huh?" Kelly absently asked.
"They don't show a lot of the Christmas specials they used to marathon on TV every single year, they took off most of the good stuff and just replace it with crap, you ever notice that?" Rhonda asked.
"Huh?" Kelly repeated just as distantly.
Rhonda looked over at the Squad lieutenant. "Kelly, if you don't stop saying 'huh?', I'm going to inoculate you," she threatened as she held up the large sewing needle she was using.
That seemed to get his attention. "Huh? Oh, sorry, Rhonda, I was just thinking of something."
"Matt," she said.
"Yeah I suppose so."
"What is it this time?" she asked.
"Ever since what happened to him, he's spent most of his nights off shift right here, he doesn't go out to Molly's much and he keeps pretty much to himself."
"And you," she pointed out.
Kelly ignored that and told her, "He started getting cold feet before he left, I kind of pushed him into going."
"Oh yeah, I find that really hard to believe that you could be pushy," his ex sarcastically said.
Kelly shrugged, "I don't know, I just hope I didn't talk him into something he wasn't ready for."
"If he's not ready after 10 months, he's never going to be," Rhonda said, "and while I haven't known him as long as you, I've known him long enough to know he isn't priest material. He's going to be fine, Kelly. You just need to stop worrying about it."
"Yeah, I suppose so," Kelly didn't sound convinced as he finally reached the end of the string he was working, "this one's done."
Rhonda leaned forward to grab the scissors off the coffee table and severed the thread right at the needle so he could tie it in a knot. Then she dropped the scissors, picked up the spool of thread and said as she tossed it and hit him in the chest with it, "Start on another one, we're going to be at this for a while." She noticed the popcorn crumbs gathering on the floor, and their laps, and inquired, "Matt does have a vacuum, right?"
"Uh...I guess so."
Rhonda turned her head and looked at him, "You've been living here for a year and you don't know if he has a vacuum cleaner in the house? If you ever have kids, do them a favor, don't play hide and seek with them."
Kelly reached an elbow over towards her. "Cut it out, Rhonda."
"Do you know if he at least has extra sheets?" she asked.
"Yeah, in the closet," Severide answered.
"Go get a couple, I've got an idea," Rhonda told him.
Rhonda spread one sheet out on the floor and sat in the middle on her knees with the bowl of popcorn beside her and continued to string it on and paid little attention to the broken pieces falling on the sheet. Severide had likewise spread one over the couch and was sitting on it lengthwise as he kept working on his own string while they watched TV. They'd caught the second half of "Rudolph" and sat through two "Frosty the Snowman" specials, now there was one on with leprechauns and banshees.
Kelly pulled a dozen pierced pieces of popcorn along the remaining length of the string and realized there were only a few inches left, enough to tie it off and then tie it to another string.
"Done," he announced.
"Me too," Rhonda said as she cut hers off, then handed him the scissors. "See how much faster it goes with two people? When I put my tree up I spend a week on these things." Rhonda poured the string back in the bowl, pushed it aside, then moved to get up, instead she stayed on her knees and called over to the fireman, "Kelly, help, I sat on my feet too long and I can't move."
Kelly brushed the crumbs off his lap and stood up, saying only, "More fun than tipping a cow," and pressed his foot against her hip and pushed her facedown on the floor.
"Very funny," she said as she pressed her hands against the floor to catch herself. The blonde woman rolled over onto her back and shook her feet and bent her toes to get the circulation going again. Kelly reached down and offered a hand to pull her up.
"Thanks," Rhonda said as she bent over to fold up the sheet. "Boy Matt'll be surprised when he gets home and sees this done."
Severide folded up the other sheet and took them both to the front door, and stepped out on the porch and shook them so all the crumbs went flying and landed somewhere down in the yard. Then he shut the door behind him, took them to the laundry room, dumped them in the washer, and returned to the living room where Rhonda laid all the popcorn strings on the coffee table and tied the ends together.
"Rhonda, can I ask you a question?" he asked.
"Sure," she said, not looking up from what she was doing.
"When you're seeing a patient, do any of them ever confess to any crimes they committed?"
"Oh yeah," she nodded, "Some of them regularly. They read a case in the paper, they confess to me, they walk into the precinct and confess, a week later they're back doing the same thing with another story."
Kelly shook his head. "No, if you thought one of them actually did what they said they did, what would you do? I mean would you turn them in?"
That got her attention. She looked at Kelly and said, "The laws are pretty clear on that, for the most part I follow them...if I find out one of my patients in the next Dennis Rader, and he's already killed 10 people and gotten away with it, and he's planning to kill more to get his name back in the paper, hell yes I'm turning him in. If somebody confesses to something so petty, or so far in the past, that no good can possibly come from wasting everybody's time and tax dollars with an investigation and a trial," she shook her head.
"Rhonda," Kelly's voice was lower now, even a hint of fear in it, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Yes?"
He looked her in the eyes and told her flat out, "I killed Harris Cardoza."
Nothing in Rhonda's expression changed. "What?"
"I killed him," Kelly admitted.
Rhonda's face softened and she laughed softly. "What're you talking about, Kelly?"
"I'm serious," he said. "I tracked him down the night before the hearing and I killed him." He shook his head. "I couldn't let Casey go through all that at the trial, and I wasn't going to let the bastard walk."
"Uh huh," Rhonda seemed to go along with it, "and...how did you do that? The police never found his body, so where is he?"
Severide knew it sounded like a bad joke but he said simply, "Sleeping with the fish."
"Uh huh," she nodded, "And Matt knows this?"
Kelly shook his head. "I can't tell him. I want to, but I know he'll never forgive me. If he knew what I did...even though the bastard had it coming...he'd be horrified to know what I did...and he'd want to know why I didn't tell him right away, why I kept it from him so long."
"And why did you?" she asked.
"I figured the cops would come around asking questions, and Casey was the likely suspect, it was better if he didn't know anything...and once he found out Cardoza was dead, he was so relieved...I decided to leave well enough alone."
The psychiatrist took all of this in, nodding simply, and then she started laughing and told him as she slapped his chest, "Kelly Severide, you are a very lucky man that I understand your oddball sense of humor."
"Rhonda, you don't get it, I di-"
"If anybody else would hear you talking right now," she continued, and Kelly saw it, a brief but knowing wink, "they would think you were actually serious about it."
It took a minute, but Kelly figured it out. This was their secret, and it would go no further than them. Only in the confines of their 'sessions' could he bring it up.
Still, he had to know, "Do you hate me, Rhonda?"
She cocked her head at an angle and looked at him as if in disbelief, then she shook her head, and hugged him. "You are a wonderful man, Kelly Severide, a prick at times but a good man nonetheless."
That made him laugh.
"And between you and me," she said into his ear, "good for you. Casey's very lucky to have you as a friend."
"He's my best friend, the only one I have left," Kelly confessed, feeling his throat tighten, "Andy's gone, Shay's gone, I have to protect him."
Rhonda looked up at him and smiled. She placed a hand on his cheek and told him, "Don't overdo it." She took a step back from him and nodded towards the tree, "Come on, let's get it finished."
Kelly heard music playing and he realized he'd fallen asleep watching TV. He had brief memories throughout the night of Rudolph, Frosty, Santa Claus, Pinocchio, crickets, donkeys, mice, drummer boys, and now, to the best of his recollections from watching Christmas specials as a kid, identified the song playing now as being from 'The Stingiest Man in Town'. His neck was stiff from having his head resting against his shoulder, he also felt it pressing against somebody's collarbone and realized they'd both fallen asleep on the couch.
"Shay," he grumbled, "turn that off and let's call it a night."
"Kelly."
That voice jolted him awake like a bucket of ice water. Not Shay. Kelly sat up and looked over and saw Rhonda sitting against the armrest, slowly coming around herself.
"I'm sorry," he said.
He'd been with enough women over the years, both meaningful and cheap and fast, to know there were few errors more fatal than calling one woman by another's name, even if both could've passed as identical twins that was still no excuse. Rhonda may have looked almost exactly like Leslie, but her voice wasn't the same, it was similar, but it reached softer and brasher pitches than Shay's did, it was impossible to confuse the two.
Rhonda was wide awake now, and she didn't say anything at first. She just looked at him, then asked simply, "You miss her, don't you?"
Kelly sighed. "All the time." He turned to the front and looked at the tree with the bright lights and popcorn strings and golden tinsel garland strung around it.
"Especially now?" Rhonda asked.
Kelly looked to the top of the tree that was still bare, Casey had a colored star that plugged in to the lights, but he'd leave that for Casey to do tomorrow.
"She was pretty happy most of the time...but I think this was her favorite time of the year," Kelly said. "The lights, the colors, the music...she used to say whoever moved Christmas to wintertime was a genius because it was the only way to endure being stuck inside with your family all those long dark nights when it was too cold to go out and do anything."
Rhonda laughed and said, "I agree with her."
And the unasked question hung in the air. Perhaps the reason Kelly asked Rhonda to come over tonight wasn't because of Casey's absence and his irrational fears about something going wrong on the date, but to serve as a substitute to temporarily fill the void that had been left behind by Shay's untimely death.
Rhonda looked to the clock on the wall and saw it was midnight, and got up from the couch. "I better go before Matt gets back from his date. I don't think he's old enough to see this," she said jokingly.
Kelly got up as well. "Thanks for coming over, Rhonda."
"Anytime, Kelly," she said as she put her coat on.
Severide was about to ask jokingly if he could walk her out, when they both heard the front door opening, and Casey stepped in saying, "Hey Severide, whose car-", and he saw the two people standing in the doorway to the hall, and he did a double take. "Rhonda."
"Hi Matt," she said, switching back to her neutral unreadable tone.
Casey looked at her, and Kelly, and her again, and back at Severide, and asked, "What's going on?"
Kelly just opened his mouth to explain when Rhonda cut him off. "Kelly got drunk tonight and called me, asking me to come over," she explained as she walked over to Matt, "I did, then as soon as I get here he starts begging me to take him back." She turned on her heel and glared back at Kelly and said in a cynical tone, "Which he knows is never going to happen but he keeps trying." She turned back to Casey and added, "Then when he figured out that wasn't going to work, he asked me to help him with the tree, because," she turned back towards Kelly and said sarcastically, "the big macho He-man Rescue Squad lieutenant, can't thread a damn needle!"
"Huh?" Casey asked.
"Come here," Rhonda led him to the living room and he saw the tree halfway done with popcorn strings wrapped around it from top to bottom seven times.
"You did that?" Casey asked.
"It was a joint effort," Rhonda said and added teasingly, "you can tell which ones are Kelly's because they look like cinnamon popcorn. Big strong Squad leader going 'ow, ow, ow!' all night pricking himself."
Kelly rolled his eyes, "Come on, Rhonda, don't be telling people stuff like that."
Rhonda headed towards the front door and the firefighters followed as she told Casey, "I am so glad that he is your problem now instead of mine. I will see you two for your next session in two days. Goodnight, Matt."
Then, before anybody realized what was going on, she grabbed Casey, kissed him on the lips and dipped him halfway to the floor, knocking him off one of his feet, then pulled him upright again and let go of him. Both men were stunned by what had just happened, but Casey most of all, who looked at Rhonda with eyes as wide as they could possibly open, and asked, "What was that?"
Rhonda coyly smirked and answered, "Just a new twist on an old tradition." And her eyes trailed up.
Casey tipped his head back and saw a plastic sprig of mistletoe hanging over the doorway.
"Who put that there?" he asked.
"Merry Christmas, guys," she waved as she showed herself out.
"Goodnight, Rhonda," Kelly called after her. When the door closed and it was just the two of them, Casey turned to him and he just said, "Sorry, Casey, I didn't think you'd mind if I invited her over."
"No, no, it's fine..." Casey went into the dining room and looked in at the tree as he took off his coat, "Looks like you guys were busy, it looks great."
"So how'd your date go?" Severide asked.
"It went well," Casey said as he hung his coat up, "we had a good time."
"Glad to hear it," Kelly found himself smiling, "You seeing her again?"
Casey thought about it for a few seconds and nodded, "Yeah, I think so. I really like her."
"Good."
"Kelly, can I ask you a question?"
"What's that?"
"Why did you ever let Rhonda get away?" Casey asked.
Kelly laughed hesitantly and said, "It's a long story."
"You should've married her, you know?"
"I know," Kelly replied, and in truth there were times he wished he did, even though he knew things would probably have wound up the same and they'd still be exes now.
"Those would've been some interesting kids," Casey noted.
Kelly laughed, "Tell me about it."
There was a pause between them as they stood in the middle of the room and looked at each other.
"You going to bed?" Kelly asked.
Casey grumbled, "Kind of wired after tonight, you?"
Kelly shook his head. "You wanna watch TV?"
"Sure," Casey shrugged. "What's on?"
"Well I know what's been on all night," Kelly said. "How about 'Lethal Weapon'?"
Casey nodded, "Sounds like a plan."