AN: So I found Season 1 of this show at a garage sale over the weekend. I'm convinced it was fate, because I was hooked within minutes of popping it in the DVD player. Please note that I am still working my way through Season 1 and am not up to date on storylines and character arcs past that point. Please don't spoil me! Also note, this is an AU with a wonky timeline! I intend for characters to make appearances throughout the story, but they may be slightly older or younger than their canon counterparts. Enjoy! ^.^

Change These Years

Chapter 1

Chicago 1995

It was well into Spring at this point—three weeks to be exact, and yet the temperature in the breezeway was only a few degrees higher than it was outside, which is to say it was freezing.

Boden stomped the packed snow from his boots onto the mat just inside the doors of the building. He didn't bother to look up at the cracked walls or the flickering hallway lights that the super would probably never get around to fixing. He just let muscle memory carry him to the third door on the right. The sounds of televisions blaring and residents shuffling around inside their apartments barely even registered, and really before he knew it, he was on the other side of his door shedding his coat.

This place was a dump compared to the warm, smartly decorated home he shared with Shaunda, but it would do until they worked things out. With minimal furnishings and appliances nearing their second and third decades, he refused to think of this arrangement as anything more than temporary. But Golden Crest was affordable on a Lieutenant's salary, and it wasn't in a bad neighborhood. Plus, it had that second bedroom for when James came to visit, and that was really the selling point.

He kicked his boots off and let them topple over one another next to the peninsula that separated the kitchen from the small living space. It was a move that Shaunda wouldn't have let slide—she'd kept a tight household, her ducks and her boys all in a row—and the bachelor in him spent longer than he cared to admit reveling in the perceived act of defiance.

In the end, though, it only served as a reminder of how completely empty the apartment was. He padded to the fridge for a beer and made his way back to the living room, carefully straightening the shoes as he passed them. Another one of those news specials was on the tube again, and he let his brain switch off to the white noise of reporters sensationalizing the recent shooting death of a young Latin songstress.

Something jarred him awake a while later, lukewarm beer spilling down his pant leg where the half drunk bottle had tipped out of his sleepy grasp. He jumped up quickly, catching the bottle and trying to regain his sense of equilibrium. It wasn't until he heard a commotion and the familiar shriek of a smoke detector going off in a neighboring apartment that he realized it hadn't been a nightmare that had awoken him. A first in a while.

With an efficiency born from nearly fifteen years of smoke jumping, Boden grabbed the small fire extinguisher from under his sink and followed the wails of the smoke detector to the apartment directly across the hall. No smoke billowed from underneath the door, and the wood was still cool when the slapped his hand against it several times.

"Fire Department! Open up!" Officially he was off-duty and had no right to demand entry in the Department's name, but the sooner he took care of the situation, the better the outcome for any potential victims. Besides, he noted with a glance in either direction, none of his neighbors had so much as peeked into the hallway to offer assistance.

"Fire Department!" He could hear noises from within the apartment, frenzied yells, furniture toppling and of course that damn loud alarm probably drowning out his efforts to make himself known. Without another thought, he turned around and kicked backwards at the lock. The door splintered open and Boden marched in, methodically assessing the scene as he went.

Inside, he found a teen trying and failing to put out what appeared to be a grease fire. The flames had spread from the pan to the nearby counter top, had just begun licking at the walls behind the stove. It was still small, contained thanks in part to the kid's quick thinking. The pan where the fire had started was buried under a mound of baking soda, but grease fires burned hot and quick.

Boden planted his feet and aimed the hose at the base of the flames, shouldering the kid behind him as he did so. Within seconds, the chaos was over, nothing left but the sounds of heavy breathing and the screech of the alarm. He calmly reached up and disarmed the smoke detector, set it on the counter and met the wide blue eyes of the young occupant.

"You okay, kid?" Still coming down from the adrenaline high, the teen stood before him panting, his eyes never leaving Boden's.

When no answer was forthcoming, Boden took a step forward, his first responder brain assessing for signs and symptoms of shock. The kid took a corresponding step back, his sneaker crushing a discarded box of baking soda.

"I'm fine," he answered hastily, unconsciously blocking Boden's advance with his forearm.

The skin of which, the Lieutenant noted with some sympathy, was shiny and reddened—a first degree burn worsening into a small second degree burn near his elbow. It didn't wrap around the limb, which was good. It certainly wasn't life-threatening, but it was probably going to hurt like hell once the kid's pain receptors kicked back on.

"What happened here?" he asked, the answer seeming fairly obvious even as the words left his lips in a hasty bark.

"My mom..." the kid trailed off, but then his eyes became suddenly frantic. He pushed past Boden and slid to his knees next to a previously unnoticed figure, folded in on herself behind an upturned chair. "Mom! I-I didn't mean-"

"Don't you touch me!" Her image of fragility shattered as the woman glared ugly at her son, pushed him into the table and took off towards her bedroom.

The door slammed shut so hard even Boden flinched. Her reaction baffled the Lieutenant, and he tried his best to keep his eyebrows from raising all the way into his hairline. The room was filled with an overwhelming sense of unease that had nothing to do with soot covered kitchen appliances. He got the sense that the fire was the least, or maybe just latest, of this family's problems.

The kid—and he really was just a kid, no older than Benny Severide's son, maybe 15 or 16—looked devastated. No tears traced paths in the soot on his cheeks, in fact he was unusually stoic, but the hollow look in his eyes made the father in Boden break.

"Hey, my name is Wallace. Wallace Boden. I live just across the hall there, but I work down at Fire House 51..." the kid remained where he was, kneeling next to the empty space where his mom used to be, but he turned his eyes to Boden, so the older man took that as an invitation to continue. "That could have gone real bad, real quick. Was a good move on your part, smothering the flames instead of trying to pour water on them, so don't beat yourself up about starting the fire."

Here, the kid's eyes flicked worriedly in the direction of his mother's bedroom door.

It gave Boden pause. Had he read the situation wrong? He watched as the kid ran a hand through blond locks, slowly, like he was attempting to smooth down more than just his hair. When he stood, he was as composed as any of the Lieutenant's men as he set about opening the windows in the living room.

Boden idled uselessly next to the counter, only just realizing that his boots were still neatly aligned in his own apartment. He scratched at his shin with a socked foot.

The teen swept past him, robotically pulling out a roll of trash bags from under the sink.

"Look, you got somebody I can call? Where's your old man?" Boden asked, feeling somewhat wrong-footed, not so much by the fire, but by the mysterious family drama he had stumbled into.

The kid made a sound, like a scoff or a tired laugh under his breath before answering. "Um...he lives up in Andersonville, and it's late. I'll be okay here." The kid squared his shoulders and extended a firm hand to the man before him. "I-I really appreciate your help, Mr. Boden."

The Lieutenant got the very distinct feeling that he was being dismissed. Something about this whole thing didn't sit right, and whatever it was twisted his gut uncomfortably.

He took the hand, but not the dismissal. "What are neighbors for?" He gestured toward the entrance where the lock had splintered the door fram, "Let me go get my tools, see what I can do about this. I'll help you clean the place up a bit, too."

"That's not necess-"

"It's nothing," he insisted, half way out the door. "Hey kid, what did you say your name was?"

Wide blue eyes met his. "It's Matt. Matt Casey."

Boden nodded, mentally running through a list of his CPD and DCFS contacts.

TBC