Hey, all! Angel Stone here. I know I haven't posted much of anything on here before, but that was just because I'm lazy and Wattpad is easier to use. But anyhow! I'm finally here with a new Dawsey story—with major whump because I love me some heart-attack-inducing storylines.
(Give a shout if you're the same!)
Also—fangirl moment!—HOW AWESOME WAS LAST WEEK'S EPISODE?!?!
Dawson kicks butt. She's one of the coolest characters on the show, in my opinion.
And the writers are geniuses for their ability to scare us to death, from the promo all the way up to the last minute of the episode. Props to them for using our fears against us, it's brilliant.
And I cannot stop saying "Captain Casey." It just sounds good.
Ok I'm done now, you can get to the story.
It's only six in the morning, but Matt Casey has already been awake for an hour. Sleep has often eluded him in these past years, and today of all days he could have had no expectations to the contrary.
The Chicago skyline is tinted pink with the approaching dawn. The air is no less cold and windy at this hour than at any other, but it seems fresher in the early morning. Matt has decided lately that he likes this time of day best; before the sleeping city has fully awakened. At this time, there has only begun a slight fluttering of Chicago's eyelids, but in about half an hour the slumbering giant will sit up against its bed-curtain, Lake Michigan, and yawn, stretching wide its maw to swallow whole an untold number of hopeful but hapless souls into its depths.
Matt smiles at the thought of Chicago as a cannibal giant. It's a grisly analogy, but rather accurate, he thinks. When the city is awake, it's one of the most harsh and unforgiving places that Matt can think of.
But, while it still sleeps, there are a few moments every morning that it could almost be called idyllic. A few moments when the aroma of coffee-shops and fresh lake air overwhelms that of garbage and engine exhaust, and when the light pink rays of sunrise break the grey gloom of the night. It is these few moments that Matt loves, because within them, you can imagine anything.
Having reached the end of his usual path, Matt pauses before turning back. He should get to work, he knows, but he thinks that his men will begrudge him a few extra moments on this particular day.
After all, he hasn't even said good morning to his wife yet.
Six years earlier:
Torn.
That's how Gabby Dawson feels. Torn apart inside, but outwardly fine. Inside, she screams in pain, but her expression is calm.
She's like a cracked doll, dropped in the dust and forgotten. Broken, but nobody sees.
Matt is alive. He came out of that fire mostly unscathed, with only a few cuts and scrapes. He's completely fine, and he got a medal for it, and he hasn't suffered any ill effects of any kind. And he's all hers to love.
These things she knows.
So why does she have to keep reminding herself?
Nearly every night, Gabby has awoken in a cold sweat, panicking with the fear that she might awake to find that her nightmares have become reality and her real life was the dream all along.
She hasn't told Matt, for some reason. Maybe she doesn't want to step on his moment of heroism, but after that one outburst about saying goodbye, she's kept quiet. Matt hasn't woken when she has, yet, so he doesn't know that she has nightmares that keep her sleep from giving her rest. He doesn't know that to keep from screaming in her sleep, she sometimes unknowingly bites her lip until it bleeds. He doesn't know that she sometimes has to clench her fists until her knuckles turn white to stop her hands shaking.
She wants to tell him. She wants to pour out all her troubles because he'll understand, she knows he will. Except, every time she tries, something stops her, and the words refuse to come.
Her mind drifts back to the conversation she and Matt had had yesterday morning, the closest they've come to broaching the subject in several weeks.
"Alright, I'm going over to Severide's for half an hour." Matt called. It was their shift's day off, and Matt and Kelly had made plans to have some "bro time" that morning.
"You two have fun." Gabby said, standing on tiptoe to give Matt a kiss.
"We will. Good—" Matt stopped mid-sentence as Gabby froze.
"Sorry." Matt said, sighing. "It's a habit. But…if you don't want me to say goodbye, then what should I say?"
Shaking off the bad memories, Gabby thought for a second.
"Say…good morning. It's more hopeful. Less…final." She said.
"Good morning." Matt repeated. "Even at night?"
Gabby almost laughed, which caused Matt to crack a smile, and just like that the previously serious tone of conversation was gone.
"Sure. Even at night."
And that night, when they were getting into bed, Matt reached over to turn out the light, paused, and said, "Good morning, Gabby" with a silly grin on his face.
Then Gabby did laugh.
Gabby sighs. That's all well and good, but that was yesterday. All week she's been up and down; bad days and good days following each other with a completely unpredictable pattern.
Yesterday was a good day. Well, a better day.
Today, however, is a bad day.
Three ambulance calls, one highway pileup, and a big fire. But that's not really what's bothering her. That's all in a day's work.
What's bothering her, what's making her feel like a frayed rope stretched too thin, is the fact that she has to stand outside and watch while Matt runs into a blazing building. She won't try to stop him; it's his job to risk his life.
But that still doesn't change the fact that every time Matt enters another flaming warehouse, Gabby can only hear his voice in her head, saying goodbye.
It breaks her all over again.
She needs to clear her head, Gabby decides. After shift she'll go do something. Maybe she'll go out. Maybe she'll hang out with Stella or Brett and have a girls night. Or maybe she'll just get in her car and drive until the road-noise dulls her pain.
"I'm gonna go get some fresh air, okay baby?" Gabby asks. Matt nods.
"Don't be too long. As a rule, I start to miss you after about fifteen minutes." Matt says with a smile. Gabby gives a halfhearted smile of her own before all-but-bolting for the door. As a rule, it only takes her about two seconds to miss Matt, but with her current mood, the apartment is starting to make her claustrophobic.
"Gabby, wait." Matt calls. Gabby stops halfway out the door and pokes her head back in.
Matt grins at her. "Good morning."
She manages a smile back. "Good morning."
The night is a warm one, even though it's windy, so Gabby drives with the windows down. The rushing of the air past the car helps to calm her down a bit, as does the soft purring of her car's engine.
Calm. Gabby hardly knows what it is anymore. Even now, her hands still shake slightly on the steering wheel, and she can imagine that her face is pale.
And of course, there's that horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. It's somewhere between dread, fear, and despair, with pain as a garnish. Sometimes Gabby feels like there's a huge hole inside her, swallowing her from the inside out.
What is wrong with her? Matt is alive, he's fine; she should be happy, not depressed. She shouldn't be hung up on a goodbye when she could be rejoicing over Matt's miraculous survival.
Sighing, Gabby tries to put the thoughts out of her mind. She's driving for the calming effect, not so that she can have the time to overthink everything.
It's just…just. Gabby hates herself for thinking it, but she wishes Matt cared more. He seems to have no regard for the fact that he almost died. To him, that was just part of his duty; it was all in a day's work. But to her, it was losing everything at once.
So much for escaping her thoughts. No matter how hard she tries, her mind just keeps drifting back to the very subject that she's trying to avoid.
Why does it have to be this way?!
Suddenly, a wave of anger washes over her, and then the dam around her emotions that she's spent over a month carefully building breaks apart, and the flood comes through. This time there's no biting of her lips or clenching of her fists; she doesn't try to hide it. She just screams. Out loud. There's no one here to hide from.
This is the first time, she realizes, that she's let herself cry—really cry—since the factory fire that nearly claimed Matt's life. It feels good to finally let it out. Keeping all that bottled-up emotion with her all the time was getting to be exhausting.
She lets it all out. She lets the pain flow through her and fly outwards from her, and she gives not a thought to who sees her.
She only closes her eyes for a second, but a second is all it takes.
The other car comes out of nowhere. Headlights flash in her window, and then all she can hear is tearing metal as her world falls to pieces, dissolving into bright lights and motion. Gravity becomes irrelevant; bits of glass and random items seem to float in front of Gabby's face. Her body is tossed from side to side violently, her seatbelt the only thing stopping her from becoming a human projectile.
She feels an almighty jolt as the car hits something else at full force. She tries to grip the steering wheel, but it falls apart at her touch and goes spinning off.
The dashboard buckles and the whole car seems to compact. Gabby cannot stop herself from being thrown forward, and white-hot pain shoots through her as metal pierces her skin.
As the car spins once more and finally rolls to a stop, Gabby's eyes slip closed.
"Oh my gosh!"
Gabby awakens to a cry of horror. She opens her eyes, blinking to clear the blurriness. She moans slightly; everything hurts. Although, the physical pain is nothing compared to the emotion she was previously feeling.
"Oh…my…are you…still alive? Please don't be dead."
Gabby focuses on the scene in front of her. She can see another car stopped a hundred yards off, its lights flashing and a pretty sizable dent in the passenger side door. Her car, what she can see of it, is demolished beyond recognition. There's no glass in the windshield and the hood is so crushed it might as well have gone through a trash compactor.
The voice belongs to a terrified-looking boy of seventeen-or-so. He looks a little banged-up, and he's bleeding from a cut on his forehead.
"Are you okay?" The kid asks.
"Can't…breathe…" Gabby manages. Her chest feels tight, and her entire upper body feels like it's on fire. She can feel pressure both in front of and behind her, so she must be trapped. Still, she seems to be semi-upright, so that's good.
"I am so sorry! The light turned red just as I went through…I didn't mean to hit you. I already called 911 and…I hope you aren't hurt too bad." The kid says with obvious fear on his face. So he must be the driver of the car that hit her. That explains the cut on his forehead.
"Can you…get…my…door open?" Gabby struggles to say.
The boy pulls a face.
"No. The door's bent in half. The whole front of your car is squished—I am so sorry."
"What…what's…trapping me?" Gabby wheezes. She can't seem to turn her head to look, and anyway, she shouldn't move too much in case she has some form of spinal injury.
The boy moves closer to look.
"You're stuck between the seat and the dashboard—the car kinda folded up on itself." The poor kid's voice is shaking. Gabby remembers being his age—she thought she was invincible, and to her, accidents like this only happened on tv. She can imagine the kid feeling the same, and his terror at finding out otherwise.
"Hey…it's ok. It's just…a car. I…can…get a…new car." The kid stares at her.
"But what about you? What if you're…what if you're hurt bad?" He asks.
"What's…your…name?" Gabby asks him, ignoring his question.
"J-Jackson." The boy stutters. "Yours?"
"I'm Gabby." Gabby replies. She manages a smile. "It's going…to be…fine,…Jackson. You're…going…to—"
Gabby stops mid-sentence as a cough shakes her body. The pain makes her black out for a second; it feels like her chest is being torn open.
"@$#!" Jackson curses. "@$#, @$#!"
Gabby opens her eyes, but the world is spinning. She coughs again, and again almost indescribable pain follows. She gasps for breath.
"What…" she tries to say, but when she opens her mouth to speak she feels something thick and wet on her lips. Another cough, and it trickles over, dribbling down her chin.
Not good. Not good at all.
Jackson is staring at Gabby, a helpless expression on his face. As Gabby coughs again and gulps for air that doesn't come, he lets loose with another stream of cursing.
Gabby can't keep her eyes open. Numbness is starting to creep into her limbs, and every cough brings the blackness closer.
"Gabby! Gabby, can you hear me?!"
Matt. Matt's here. It's Matt's voice she hears, Matt's hand she feels on her shoulder.
Matt's here, so everything must be okay now.
"Gabby!"
Gabby opens her eyes slowly. It's too bright—she wants nothing more than to go back to the comfortable blackness. Why does Matt want her awake? Why can't he let her sleep?
Matt's worried face appears in front of Gabby.
"Hold on, Gabby. Just hold on a little longer. We'll get you out." Matt says.
But Gabby doesn't want to. The numbness seems to welcome her with open arms; the fire in her chest is the only thing she can still feel, and all she wants is to slip away from the pain.
"Dawson, just stay still. Hey, eyes open. Look at me. You're going to be fine."
It's Brett talking now. Gabby fights to keep her eyes open as the other paramedic secures a c-collar around her neck. Gabby attempts to smile at her friend, but she only manages a slight movement.
"We are going to get you out of here, and then the doctors at med will get you all fixed up." Brett says. Gabby knows Brett too well, however. She knows when the other woman is lying. She knows when her friend is trying to reassure herself against the inevitable.
Suddenly, there's a tearing sound.
"Okay, door's off. We need a jack for the dash." That's Cruz talking.
Gabby hears the clunk as the jack is set in place, and hears them start to crank it. The pressure on her chest releases slightly.
Then the pain flares, worse than before, and Gabby gasps, choking on a cough. Fresh blood spills out of her mouth.
"Stop! Stop!" Kelly yells. Thankfully, the jack stops moving. Gabby's vision slowly comes back in spots and flashes as the pain subsides to what it was before.
"Matt…we have a problem." Kelly says, and his tone suggests bad news. At this point, though, his words go straight through Gabby's head—she barely hears him. She wants to go back to sleep. Her eyes start to close.
"Gabby! Stay awake, Gabby!" Matt's yell startles her enough to keep her from drifting off—for the moment.
"The steering wheel broke off, and she was thrown forward onto the drive shaft. It's in her chest at least three inches deep."
It's Kelly talking, and at his words Gabby feels Matt's grip on her shoulder tighten.
It's at this point that Gabby knows for sure that she's going to die.
The blackness can't come soon enough.
"Gabby—" Matt stops mid-sentence. Gabby looks up at him, memorizing every detail of his face. This might be the last time she sees it.
For a second the picture is clear, in perfect definition, but in the next second Gabby coughs again and the world slides out of focus. She gasps and chokes, but she can't get enough air, and she knows she doesn't have much time left.
"M—Matt?" Gabby chokes out.
"Gabby?" Matt is right there, taking her hand in his, although she can barely feel it.
Gabby wants to speak, to tell Matt everything she's wanted to say to him, but she's slipping. She's sliding backwards into the dark, and her voice won't work.
All of a sudden, the pain in her chest stops. It just stops. She's no longer capable of feeling it, or anything else.
The release sends darkness like a cloud over her vision, and she closes her eyes, letting it take over. She takes one breath, then another. Then one more, but it's barely there.
She only has time for two words.
"Good…morning…"
Present day:
The cemetery is quiet—almost too quiet compared to the rest of the city. The phrase "silent as the grave" certainly applies here.
Matt stops by a simple headstone; just one more identical grey slab in a row of identical grey slabs, but not to him.
"Good morning, Gabby." Matt says.
Gabriela Dawson stands up from her place beside the gravestone and gives Matt a sad smile.
"Good morning." She replies.
Today marks six years exactly since the accident. Six years since Gabby's miraculous survival.
And nine years exactly since Shay's death.
Matt hadn't thought about it at the time, but the day of the accident was the same day on which, three years before, Shay had been killed. It was almost ironic, that Gabby nearly died on the same day as her late best friend.
For the past six years, both Matt and Gabby have made a point to visit Shay's grave on this particular day. To remember Shay, of course, but for Matt it's also a potent reminder of just how much of a miracle it is; the fact that Gabby is alive, standing right next to him, and not underneath a headstone.
"It's been a long time." Gabby says softly. Matt isn't sure whether she's talking to him or to Shay.
It has been a long time. Many things have happened in the past six years, both inside the firehouse and out.
To everyone's shock and surprise, Severide finally gave up his playboy lifestyle, settled down, and got married. He and Stella have a two-year-old daughter now.
Mouch, the old devil, finally retired last year. He now teaches exercise classes and is thinking of starting a health-drink company.
Truck 81 has a new Lieutenant: Hermann, who swears he'd rather die than retire.
Gabby was awarded a medal for heroism after she made a particularly hard call and took a risk that saved the life of an important statesman. It had since become a running joke in the firehouse that she only did it so she could get a medal to match Matt's.
And Matt? Well, when Boden decided to retire from active duty in order to teach at the academy, it was Matt who—with support from all sides—took his place as Chief of Firehouse 51. Not surprising, really.
What was surprising was that Matt had taken it upon himself to personally mentor a new candidate: Jackson McHall, the other driver in the accident that almost claimed Gabby's life. The kid had been so impressed by the actions of the firefighters that day that he decided to become one. Matt understood; Jackson wanted to be able to save people in these situations, rather than just cause them.
Jackson is now a permanent member of Squad 3, and according to Kelly, he's calmer and more focused on the job than pretty much anybody.
"We should get back." Matt breaks the silence. The firehouse will be waiting for them.
Gabby nods.
"Let's go." She says.
As the sun's early-morning light spills over the silhouettes of the buildings, bathing the cemetery in soft gold, Cheif Casey and his wife walk hand in hand back to the waking bustle of the city.
Hee hee hee! Gotcha!
Did I scare you all? I love twist endings.
Fun fact: this is actually the second draft of the story. At first I wrote it with a completely different ending, and that's the version that's on my Wattpad. But since I happen to write on two websites, I thought I'd give you guys the twist ending instead! (Which I only thought up after I was almost done with the original story.)
(If you read my other stories, this ending is very uncharacteristic of me. I'm usually much more dark and/or morbid. But I wanted to end this one like the writers of Chicago Fire would end it—scare y'all to death and then have a happy ending.)
Love ya! —Angel