Aftermath

Hank Voight heard the sound of somebody knocking on his front door downstairs. It was after midnight and though he hadn't been to bed yet, he was definitely not anticipating any visitors. So, he did what he always did when somebody made an unannounced arrival in the middle of the night, he went downstairs with his shotgun in hand, ready to use it if he had to. The knock was persistent but not particularly strong, like somebody determined but lacking the strength to rap on the door with full force. Voight reached the bottom of the stairs, drew back the curtain on the door, and couldn't believe who he saw standing outside. He reached over, hit the porch lights, leaned his shotgun against the wall, unlocked the door and pulled it open.

"Matt."

Lieutenant Matt Casey of Firehouse 51 stood on Voight's porch, his eyes wide but simultaneously looked like he was about to drop from exhaustion. He slowly drew back his hand from where he'd been hitting the door and looked at the Intelligence sergeant uncertainly.

"Voight," he responded hesitantly.

The last time Matt Casey was on his doorstep, he'd knocked Voight flat on his ass. The only person who'd ever been simultaneously ballsy and stupid enough to even think of such a thing, though Voight would never admit it to anybody, he'd been able to respect Casey for that. Any guy willing to go off on a suicide junket to try and protect his family, you had to respect his guts.

Voight had brought Justin home on a bender enough times to know Casey had been drinking, the smell wasn't overwhelming and he probably hadn't had anything to drink for a few hours, but he could tell. He looked past Casey out to the street, but he didn't see Casey's pickup anywhere.

"How'd you get here, Casey?" he asked with more than just slight concern as he held the door open.

"I dunno," Casey replied as he inched past the door, "can I come in?"

Voight didn't stop him. He let Casey get in the front hall and he closed the door and turned to the Truck lieutenant.

"Are you alright, Matt?" he asked.

Casey let out a slow exhale and shook his head, "I don't know."

"Were you in an accident?" Voight asked. He hit the light switch and glanced over the blonde man for any obvious injuries.

"No," Casey shook his head.

Voight grabbed Casey's jacket and jerked it off of him in one quick movement, he'd be the judge of that. He put his hands on Casey and more or less forced him to turn to every side while he checked him over, he saw no blood, no bruises, no indication Casey had been injured either in an accident or otherwise. He did however notice that Casey's hair was messed up and his clothes looked like they'd been hastily thrown on, it looked like he'd jumped right out of bed and wandered over there.

"What happened tonight, Casey?" he asked, hoping he'd be able to find the answer relatively quickly.

Matt looked at him, and for the first time his eyes actually seemed to focus, his body language gave some indication he knew where he was and what was going on. With a wide eyed expression that reeked of sheer terror, he told Voight, barely able to put the words together, "I woke up and he was on top of me." He swallowed hard and added, "He put a knife to my throat."

"Who?" Voight asked.

Casey didn't seem to hear him, he continued, "He said he'd kill me if I fought him."

"Who?" Voight asked again.

Casey looked straight ahead and answered, "Harris Cardoza."

That's what Voight thought. It had been several months since anybody had heard that name. Months since Casey had been the victim of a horrible attack. Voight had used his leverage in Intelligence to unofficially extend his men into the investigation to find Casey's rapist, and Antonio had been the one to make the collar. Months since that son of a bitch had been arrested, months since he was supposed to appear at a preliminary hearing...months since a 911 call had been made about a disturbance at Cardoza's house, which revealed his blood all over the floor, more than he could've lived without. Though no body had ever been found, that had pretty much been that, case closed, and it had seemed that everybody involved could move on with their lives. Almost. Voight hadn't had any direct contact with Casey at that time except for a couple minutes the morning after Cardoza's disappearance, to verify his alibi for the night in question, and there hadn't been any circumstances that required him to speak with the lieutenant since then either. So for Casey to come to him in the middle of the night with this revelation, Voight had no idea what to make of that. But he did have some idea of what to make of this.

"Matt..."

"I know," Casey replied, his defeated tone that of a child who didn't need another lecture, "I know it's impossible, I know Cardoza's dead...but when I woke up I would've sworn he was there...I felt his weight on me, I smelled those cheap cigarettes...I could hear his voice..."

Voight nodded in understanding, and he asked Casey, "Is anybody else there tonight?"

Casey slowly shook his head. "Severide went out earlier tonight, he hasn't come back yet."

"Okay, that does it, you're going to stay here tonight," Voight told Casey as he put a hand on his shoulder and guided him towards the living room. "Come on, I'll put you on the couch."

"I'm sorry I got you up," Casey told him.

"You didn't," Voight said.

"I don't know why I came here," Matt said.

"Don't worry about it," Voight told him.

"I just couldn't stay there," Casey said, "and I couldn't think where else to go."

"It's alright," Hank replied, mentally calculating how long Casey must've been walking to get from his place to Voight's house given they weren't anywhere near the same neighborhoods. In his current state of mind, it was a wonder he hadn't gotten himself murdered somewhere between points A and B. Anything could've happened to Casey in the time it took to wander over to his side of the city.

Matt stopped and turned to him, "Hank..."

"Yeah?"

Casey's eyes were wide, a variety of emotions quite readable in them, confusion, hopelessness, he looked truly lost.

"What's wrong with me?" Casey asked. "It's been months since it happened...I thought I was over this."

"Calm down," Voight could see Casey's chest starting to heave as his breathing became frenzied as he spoke.

"What's wrong with me, Hank?" Casey's eyes changed again and he was frantic now, the words practically became a mantra, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?"

"Casey, calm down!" Voight said as he grabbed Casey's hands just before he hit himself in the head in despair.

Casey collapsed against Voight, still trying to ask that question but the words were broken up between choked breaths as he started crying. Voight let go of Casey's hands and wrapped an arm around the lieutenant's back to steady him.

"Easy, easy," he told the younger man whose breaths came out in pained sobs against his shoulder, "you're alright, it's over, calm down."

Casey couldn't calm down though. He latched onto Voight with all his strength, which right now wasn't much, every breath he sucked in immediately came back out as a sob so quick and frenzied he was bordering on hyperventilation.

"It's okay, it's okay," Voight calmly told the lieutenant as he placed one hand on the back of Casey's head and held him tight, "you're okay, it's alright, take it easy, breathe Casey, you're alright, it's over, he can't hurt you anymore."

A louder sob escaped from Casey's throat as he tightened his hold on Voight like a drowning man trying to cling to a lifeline. Voight in return tightened his own grip until he was about to crush Casey's spine. Hank knew that Matt Casey was as strong of a man as they came, anybody willing to wage a war against him had to be, there were 20 year veterans on the police force who saw every atrocity known to man, who never so much dared look at him the wrong way, this guy came to his home, punched him in the face, knocked him on his ass and was ready to kill him. And Voight knew that was part of the reason why this was so hard for the lieutenant now, to deal with the fact that for all his training, his instincts, his experiences, nothing had prepared him for what happened that night, nothing could, and nothing that he knew how to do any other time he was cornered or threatened, could've done a damn thing to save him.

Oh yes, Hank also recalled the time they rolled up on the crew from 51 when they were rescuing a tagger stuck on a fire escape, he'd seen Casey twirling the Halligan in his hands like a baton, just waiting for Voight to show up, anticipating using it. He remembered Boden had called Severide to get in front of Casey so the situation didn't escalate. Hell, everybody got in front of Casey, because they all knew what he was capable of. He thought he could plan for anything, even when he couldn't, he never accepted the possibility something could be so far beyond his control, but that's exactly what had happened here. Cardoza had had the upper hand, it was Casey's home and he knew the layout like a book, but Cardoza had the element of surprise, however the hell he'd found out about Casey, he had been outside the house waiting for the lieutenant to come home that night, he'd gotten in when Casey forgot to lock the door, and he had brutalized Casey for nobody knew how long, until Severide had walked in on the attack and stopped it.

What happened to Casey really, unfortunately, was not that rare, not in any circumstance. Even when rape was not part of the attack. Voight could only remember all too well having his home busted into by a gang of thugs who kidnapped him and his pregnant future daughter-in-law, beat the hell out of him and left Olive for dead with a plastic bag tied to her head, and he remembered that feeling of utter helplessness when he was tied up and couldn't help her, and she and his grandson would've both died before his eyes, if his men hadn't been able to find him in the nick of time. And for what? As far as reasons went, motive, there were no good ones, there never were, and Voight never paid too much attention to the psychology of rapists, serial killers, he left that to the professionals, he just rounded them up, brought them in, and beat the hell out of them. But as sick as he knew the motive of a rapist was about power and control, he still couldn't balance the scales that killing a pregnant woman and her baby over a safe full of money was any better of a reason. And how many times, the sergeant wondered, how many times did a soldier come back from war in the Middle East, and all his training about how to take out terrorists, enemy soldiers, any perceived threat, did him no good and in his own home town he could easily be shot or stabbed to death by any random punk on the street? They all saw it, all the time, on the job and off.

None of it made any sense, but this, what Casey went through, that was in a field all its own as far as the sheer depravity of the attack went. That was another reason why it had hit him so hard; it was quickly becoming an obsolete stereotype that only women were victims of rape, but society still maintained that men did not think about it happening to them, and there was truth to that, Hank didn't have to know Casey all that well to know that not once in this young man's life did that thought ever occur to him...until it happened. Suddenly nothing made sense anymore, and everything Casey thought he knew had gone out the window, and that was something he was clearly still struggling to come to terms with.

Voight was aware that Casey sounded like he was winding down, and the small spasms that wracked through his body had stopped, maybe he just didn't have enough energy anymore to carry on.

"You're alright, Casey, just calm down," Voight told him as he led Matt towards the couch.

Casey sat down and ran his forearm across his face to wipe away the worst of the tears, he said to Voight in a tired voice, too tired to even sound embarrassed by what had just happened, or in whose company it did, "I...would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this...I don't need everyone to know I'm losing it."

"Casey, you're not losing it." Voight watched as the blonde man snorted and scoffed, and he elaborated, "Think back, how many times over the years you wake up swearing you saw your mom kill your dad?"

Casey looked at him. It was true there was no record anywhere of Casey ever making any such admission, but the look on his face told Voight it was only too true. He hadn't been there when it happened, but that hadn't stopped his mind from inserting him into the middle of the bloodshed a hundred times over the years.

"Now think back, how many times you wake up flashed back to a fire you responded to? The people you saved, the ones you couldn't? It's not that rare, is it?" Voight asked.

"This is different," Casey said.

"No it's not," Voight replied. "It's all traumatic, Casey, and it doesn't just go away, no matter how helpful that would be. Believe me."

Casey looked up at him with tired but wide eyes. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he started to think maybe there was a reason Voight had still been up when he arrived.

"You stay there," Voight pointed a finger at him, "I'll be back in a minute."

Voight didn't know whether Casey had been drinking earlier that night to drown out the memories of his attack, or if he'd started drinking before it all hit him, either way a little more booze wouldn't hurt him now, especially since he wasn't driving. Hank dug out a bottle of whiskey and poured enough to dull most of Casey's brain cells for the rest of the night, what he needed was a few hours of sleep blissfully void of any dreams or thoughts, and this was the closest way to legally make that happen.

He returned to the living room with the drink in hand, and stopped, and shook his head when he saw Casey was already in a dead sleep, half sitting, half sprawled across the couch. Voight set the glass down and went over to the couch, grabbed Casey under the armpits and laid his body down flat, his head propped on the armrest.

Casey moaned softly in his sleep but otherwise didn't respond whatsoever to Voight moving him, though it was only now Voight realized he was cold to the touch. Again, considering how long he had to be wandering around in the night to get there, with only a flimsy jacket to keep him warm, it shouldn't be any surprise. Voight grabbed the heavy flannel blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over Matt, who after a couple seconds, moaned again in response to the heavy material covering him, and half turned on his side and appeared to curl into a ball where he lay.

Voight looked down at the younger man and shook his head. He didn't have to wonder who did what to him, he knew the name of the bastard who'd attacked Casey, Harris Cardoza, and he knew that it had been impossible for anybody, his crew, the cops working sex crimes, the State's Attorney's office, anyone, to link him back to any other rape victims, even though there was no way this man just woke up one day and decided to target a fireman for the hell of it. He understood it, he knew too well the shame that victims carried around, and why it stopped them from reporting their attacks, and he knew if Casey would've had things his way, that's exactly what would've happened in his case too. Had Casey come to Voight at any time after Cardoza's arrest, and told him he couldn't go through with a trial, Voight would've offered his services to assist the younger man in any way he could, and over the years he'd built up plenty of experience in making problems go away. To his surprise, and that of most of his unit, Casey had pressed on for a trial, he'd gone to court to testify, but Cardoza hadn't shown up, 12 hours later they'd found evidence he had to be dead. Hank himself had gone over to Casey's house the next morning to give him the good news, and verify his and Kelly Severide's alibis for the night in question of course. It had been obvious that Casey didn't have any idea what had happened, his hands were clean. And Voight had hoped that with that newfound revelation, the lieutenant's life would start to get easier. As Casey said earlier, it had been months, so Voight could only presume that Casey had been doing alright until this point, so what happened?

The clock said it was going on 4 o' clock in the morning, Voight still hadn't been to bed, but over the years he'd gotten used to that. He headed towards the front door and looked out at the headlights shining from the street. It was too dark to make out the car that had just pulled up, but the lights went off and he heard a car door slam shut. He left the porch light off but saw a figure in the dark run up the sidewalk to the porch.

"Lose something?" Voight cynically asked as he held the door open.

Kelly Severide was wide eyed and looked close to panic. "Where's Casey?"

"Follow me," Voight said with a slight nod to the direction he turned.

Severide stepped in the house and followed after Voight, "What happened? Is he okay?"

"I'll let you be the judge of that," Hank said as he walked into the dining room and stopped, pointing to the man asleep on the couch in the next room.

"Casey!" Kelly ran over to the couch, dropped on one knee and pressed down on the blonde man buried under the blanket, still on his side with his back to Severide. Kelly pressed down on Casey's shoulder and shook him to wake him up, but there was no response.

"Casey, are you alright?"

There was a small utterance of a groan from deep within the Truck lieutenant's throat, then in one fluid movement he turned over and jabbed an elbow at Severide, just missing Kelly's face.

"Whoa!" Kelly said as he pinned Casey's arm down as he started to come to. Voight stepped into the room and stood behind Severide, watching as Casey's eyes slowly opened, then shut, then opened again, then he tried to sit up.

Casey's eyes were only half open as he turned to the right and tiredly asked, "Severide?" He looked past Kelly and said, a little more alert, "Voight?" He groggily looked around the room and asked, "What's going on?"

All Voight had to say was, "Go back to sleep, you're dreaming."

Somehow, that worked, Casey groaned and lay his head back against the armrest and closed his eyes, and was out like a light almost instantly.

"What's going on?" Kelly asked the Intelligence sergeant.

"Can I see you in my office?" Voight pointed towards the kitchen.

Kelly was slightly less frantic as he paced around Voight's kitchen table and explained to the cop, "I get home half an hour ago, Casey's truck is at the curb, the door's unlocked, I go in, he's not there, his phone's there, his wallet's there, it just..."

"Took you back?" Voight asked.

Kelly exhaled and shook his head, "How long's he been here?"

"About four hours," Voight said.

"What?" Kelly turned to him. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"You called me, remember?" Voight asked. "For one thing, I never had your number on my phone, for another, Casey didn't say he wanted you here." There was a brief pause before Voight inquired, "How've things been with you two lately?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well?"

"Fine," Kelly answered sharply, "now...what happened to Casey?"

"My guess, rough night," Voight answered. "He flashed back to the night he was attacked...since he was alone, he took off."

"My God," Kelly said half under his breath.

"I still can't figure out how he wound up here," Hank told the Squad lieutenant, "there are about a million different ways he could've been murdered before he ever got here, you know that."

Severide gave a small nod, he knew that.

"So that he got here unscathed, physically, in the mental state he was in, is nothing short of a miracle," Voight told him. "I figured I'd wait and see if you realized he was missing, if not, I was going to take him back in the morning, but there wasn't any way I was letting him go back out there like that."

Kelly shook his head and sighed, "Damn it, he'd been doing better."

"This happened before?" Voight asked.

"No, but..." Severide looked to the side as he explained, "he had been having some bad nights a while back. A few times he'd wake up screaming...most times he was still up watching TV when I went to bed, he'd still be there when I came down in the morning."

Hank could see Kelly was mentally kicking himself for this, the Squad lieutenant told the sergeant, "It hadn't happened for weeks, I wouldn't have gone out and left him alone if he had been."

"You're not his keeper, Kelly," Voight told him. "Nobody expects you to hover over him 24/7." He took a step closer to Severide and told him, "Kelly, I know what you did for Matt, it took a lot of guts."

Severide paused, then looked at Voight skeptically, "What do you mean?"

"You walked in on your best friend being raped, you stopped it, you kicked the son of a bitch's ass, you got Casey to the hospital, you called it in, Cardoza would never have been caught if you hadn't stayed on it."

Kelly snorted, "Yeah, lot of good that did."

"Apparently so, somebody was paying attention, somebody took him out," Voight said, "that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been arrested."

Kelly nodded back towards the living room, "It wasn't enough."

"Nobody said life was fair," Voight replied. "All we can do is aim for close enough, you did something most people could never do."

Kelly looked at him and asked, "Voight...if it had actually gone to trial...what do you think Casey's chances would've been?"

Voight shook his head, "Don't ask me that. Every jury's different, it could've gone either way. At least Casey was spared what the defense would've thrown at him."

Kelly nodded uncertainly. Something came back to him. That first day he ran into Voight after he'd been released from prison.

"Just remember, squeakiest wheel always wins around here."

Kelly could've been knocked over with a feather. He knew that Voight had been let go, but he sure as hell hadn't planned on ever seeing him again.

"Looks like it," he'd replied.

Hank had looked at him and asked, "You're Benny Severide's kid, right?"

"That's right." Normally anybody outside of Benny's fishing buddies who knew him as his father's son...those discussions never ended well. This hadn't been one of those conversations, and looking back, Kelly realized why it had stuck out in his mind all these years, what had been so unnerving about it. It had been that grin on Voight's face. Over the years 51 had been forced to join forces with Voight and his unit several times, forced to put history and their bad blood aside, nothing had ever fully been forgiven or forgotten, but over the years they'd all gotten to know Voight a lot better, and this far down the line, Kelly knew that Hank Voight did not by nature grin very much, if at all. But that grin on his face as he responded fondly, "Oh Benny." His eyes lit up like he was on cloud 9 from some memory.

It had never made sense, and though Kelly never thought much of it, now he knew why it didn't make sense. The way Voight said it, and that huge grin on his face as he said it, the only time anybody ever had that look on their face was when they either recalled their best friend or the love of their life. Immediately pushing the latter from his mind, Kelly could still acknowledge even if that ever had been the case, nobody who used to have a thing with Benny would still have any fond memories of him that far down the line, his mom and however many other exes Benny left in the dust were proof enough of that, so that definitely wasn't it. But the first idea didn't make any sense either, whenever Benny popped up in Chicago he could spin yarns all day long about his friends from his smoke-eating days, or whoever else he was still in good company with, Hank Voight's name had never, in the 30-some odd years that Kelly had listened to every glory days story his dad ever told, ever come up one time.

"Voight...how well do you know Benny?" Kelly asked.

And there it was again. Something turned up the light in the sergeant's eyes, the tips of his mouth turned upward in the beginning of a smirk.

"Oh, Benny and I go back," Voight said.

And right there, Kelly knew that was all the further of an answer he was ever going to get on the subject. A lot of things started racing through his mind and he was left with the definite impression he was walking a fine line in a very tangled web. What Voight did or didn't know about the night Cardoza disappeared, he was scared to even try to guess.

"Kelly," Voight broke up the lieutenant's thoughts, "Matt is very lucky to have you for a friend."

Severide shook off the thoughts running around in his head and responded uncertainly, "So they tell me."

Suddenly Kelly felt very awkward in Voight's house having this conversation with the cop from Intelligence. He went back to the living room to see if Casey was in any condition to get out of there. He knelt down by the couch and shook his best friend again. "Casey...Casey."

Matt's eyes opened, this time almost all the way, and he slowly looked around, not moving his head, only his eyes, and he looked at the man hovering over him and tiredly asked, "Kelly?"

"Yeah, it's me."

Casey looked at him for a few seconds, his eyes alert but distant, almost blank. Then in one sudden movement without a single word or sound, he shot up on the couch and wrapped his arms around Kelly and rested his head on Kelly's shoulder.

Severide was stunned at first but quickly recovered, and in return, locked his arms around Casey. He had no idea what to make of this, if Casey would've said anything or made any kind of sound that Kelly could get a read on what was going on with him, but there was nothing, no heavy or shallow or shaky breathing as typically followed him waking up screaming from a nightmare, no screams, no cries, there was no rapid heartbeat pounding against his own chest, there were no sobs trying to wrack their way up through his body, there was nothing, only Casey clinging to him like a drowning man clinging to a lifesaver.

Kelly could feel another presence in the room, he knew Voight was there watching them, and while he would've liked nothing more than to tell the Intelligence sergeant to give them some privacy, he knew that there'd be no such luck if he broached the subject. Hell, he could just picture the cop pulling up a chair for a closer view just to be a smartass about it. Instead he turned his head and said quietly enough so only Casey could hear him, "It's okay. Come on, I'll take you home."

With some obvious reluctance, Casey let go of Severide and pulled away from him. Severide moved so Casey could get off the couch, Matt stood up and rubbed his eyes, Kelly turned and saw Voight standing in the doorway.

"Thanks for keeping an eye on him for me," Kelly told him as he headed to the dining room.

"Don't mention it."

"Hank," Casey said uncertainly as he put on his jacket, not sure what to say.

Voight closed the distance between them and told the lieutenant, "Matt...you ever need to talk to someone about what happened, or not, you always know where you can find me."

Casey looked at him and nodded slowly, "Thanks, Hank, I appreciate it."

Once Casey got in the passenger side of Severide's car, whatever energy he had quickly left him and he was more asleep than awake by the time they finally got back home. Severide had to more or less walk his friend from the car up the sidewalk, up the stairs, and in the front door.

"You wanna just crash on the couch?" Kelly asked as they walked in.

Casey muttered something that sounded like a definite no.

"Okay then," Kelly said as he slung Casey's arm over his shoulder, "brace yourself, buddy, we got some stairs to climb."

Casey yawned and rested his head against Severide's shoulder as they made their way up to the second floor. Severide turned on the light in Casey's room, saw the bed still in a state of disarray, at least it'd save him the trouble of pulling down the covers before easing Casey on it. He got Casey over to the bed and let him fall back on the middle of the mattress while Kelly grabbed his boots one by one and got them off. Casey weakly brought his hands up to his face and made a bunch of small groaning sounds that if Kelly had to guess, actually suggested just being awake was causing him some kind of physical pain.

"You want me to stay with you, Casey?" he asked.

Casey grunted something that sounded like another 'no'.

"You sure about that?" Kelly asked.

Casey let out another incoherent sound but Severide interpreted it as a 'no' as well.

"If you say so," Kelly dropped Casey's boots on the floor, then grabbed Matt under the armpits and laid him out length-wise on the bed and drew the covers up over him. He patted Casey's shoulders through the blanket and told him, "Goodnight, buddy."

Matt woke up and saw the sun light just starting to shine in through the window. He didn't know what time it was, he didn't remember anything that had happened last night, it was like he'd woken up from a total fog. He was laying on his stomach and had the side of his head buried in the pillow as he slowly looked around the room with one eye. Then, a series of icy chills ran down his spine. He couldn't explain it, but he knew there was someone in the room with him, he could feel the presence of another person. He looked around without turning his head and saw nothing was out of place, leaving only one possible explanation, whoever it was, was right behind him.

Then suddenly the memories of last night came flooding back, waking up and feeling Cardoza on top of him, even though he knew it was impossible. In the cold light of day he knew it was even more impossible, but he could still feel pins and needles coursing down his back in anxiety as he contemplated who was there. Finally in one quick movement, he turned over to see who it was, and he stopped, and lay there with a dumbstruck look on his face. It was Severide. He was laying flat on his back and had the covers pulled up to his chest, and was dead to the world.

This wasn't the first time he'd waken up in the same bed as the Squad lieutenant, by this time it wasn't even the second or third time. The first time, Casey had been so shocked that he was literally frozen for several seconds unable to move or speak. While this still caught him off guard, he recovered quicker this time and exclaimed, "Kelly!"

Severide's eyes popped open at the sound of his name and he blinked a few times to get his bearings, and when he realized where he was and who'd called him, he looked at Casey, and his expression quickly changed from confusion to a mischievous cheeky grin, like he got caught doing something he knew he'd get caught at.

"Morning, Casey. You feeling better?"

"What're you doing here?" Matt asked.

"Well, I thought you might need some company," Kelly answered as he sat up. "Look, Casey, I'm sorry I wasn't here last night."

"Don't," Casey cut him off. He sat up, "I don't need a babysitter, Severide."

The expression in Severide's eyes changed and became more somber. "I know, but I thought you could use a friend."

Casey shook his head with a confused expression on his face like he was still trying to put the pieces of last night together.

"Matt, I just have one question," Severide said, "What ever possessed you to go to Voight's last night?"

Casey looked at him like he had no recollection of that. Then it started to come to him. He looked down and shook his head, "I don't know...I hardly even remember going there...I just knew I couldn't stay here."

"Why didn't you call me last night?" Kelly asked. "You know I would've come home."

"Now you know why I didn't," Casey replied. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. "Look, I appreciate everything you did for me at the time, but I don't want to go back to that, I can't ha-I won't have you running back here every time I have a rough night."

"I'd rather do that than come home and find you gone again wondering if something happened," Kelly told him. "Casey I was scared to death last night, you take off, your truck's here, your phone's here, the door's open, do you realize how panicked I was to actually call Voight for help?"

Casey just looked at him. He said nothing, but he didn't need to, his eyes told Kelly everything he needed to know, if Kelly was that worried, just imagine how terrified Casey must've been to actually go to Voight last night. Kelly couldn't find any words for a response that would do any justice. He reached over and grabbed Casey and pulled him against him and told him, "I'm sorry, man, I should've been here."

Casey sighed and responded, "It's not your fault."

Severide pressed a hand to the back of Casey's neck and told him, "It's not yours either." Even though he knew that Casey inherently knew that fact, he didn't figure it hurt to have someone else confirm it.

Casey simultaneously welcomed and resented this. He hated that this long after the fact he was still haunted by the memories of what happened, and he knew Voight was right, he knew that it wasn't so different from any other traumas he experienced on the job or in his own life, none of them had ever left him. He resented that too, he resented Voight being right, as messed up as his life had been by what his mom did to his dad so many years ago, he'd been able to come to terms with it, he knew why it had happened. He'd tried to come to terms with this too, but he couldn't, to this day he still had no idea why it had happened, he just hated that it did. He hated that he couldn't move on, he tried, but every so often, something reminded him of the attack.

He felt Severide pull back from him and he heard Kelly say to him, "Promise me you'll call next time."

Casey nodded. "I will."