Chapter One
Matt could feel how his blood started to boil as he watched Mills sniff around Severide and Squad's truck instead of gathering up their gear. It had been like this for the last couple of days now. Mills kept forgetting his place in favour of scoring points with Squad and their lieutenant. It had happened ever since the Chief and Severide had voiced their opinion that they wanted Mills to move over to Squad. What annoyed Matt the most though was the fact that Mills seemed to think he had switched team already and that the Chief and Severide had gone behind his back.
Things had been good between himself and Severide for a while now. They had put the guilt concerning Darden's death behind them and had slowly started to build up a tentative friendship again. But Severide just had to go and ruin it again by messing with his team.
Mills really should know better as well since the first thing Matt told him when he joined their team was to know his place. It seemed like the candidate had some problems with that, in more ways than one.
"Leave his ass!" Matt said and slammed the door of the truck shut before he jumped into his passenger seat.
"Gladly." the rest of the guys answered. It seemed like it wasn't just Matt that Mills had been rubbing the wrong way with his behaviour.
Matt had to admit though, he was jealous of the candidate. Mills had what he wanted, and he wasn't talking about some spot on Squad. He had Gabby and if Matt had not been so stupid and blind, Gabby could have been with him right now instead of Mills. If he had not turned his cheek that night at the Christmas party, he could be the one laughing with Gabby on the couch in the common area or fooled around with her in the kitchen as they cooked.
That fact ate away at him and it surprised him how jealous he got every time he saw the two of them together. He had been the one to turn her down after all, unsure of his feelings so soon after his break up from Hallie. Yet he became the Green-Eyed monster the times he saw them being cute around the house.
Today was one of those days that the Green-Eyed monster rose its ugly head and came out to play. For Mills to abandon ship on top of that made Matt rather unwilling to be pleasant towards the candidate. The first thing he did when he got back to the house was to take out the mop from the supply closet. It was time to really teach the candidate his place and put him to work. They had been light on Mills since he first arrived and had not put him through the same hell as they have put the other candidates through since he proved himself to be one hell of a firefighter when they were out on calls. But he was only a candidate at the end of the day, and he was still on Truck 81 with Matt as his Lieutenant.
When Squad's truck rolled in and Mills jumped out, he wore an embarrassed look on his face. It was obvious that the message of his screw up had been received loud and clear. He walked over to Matt and accepted the mop that was handed to him.
"The toilets need to be cleaned, Candidate." Matt said.
As he walked of, he could hear the rest of the Squad laugh at the Candidate's unfortunate situation. But none of them came to his defence. They had all been forced to go through the very same thing when they first started out at the bottom of the ladder. Everyone knew that if you pissed off your Lieutenant in some way, you had to pay and do the dirty work.
Matt walked towards the common area and found Gabby sitting at one of the tables, along with Otis. She was telling him a story about her grandparents as she showed him a picture on her phone of said grandparents, standing outside Europe's oldest restaurant in Greece. Matt could tell that while the story meant something to Gabby, she wasn't just telling it to take a walk down memory lane, and Otis, the poor fellow, was playing straight into her hands.
It was nearly impossible for him to hide his smirk as Gabby smoothly transitioned the conversation into decorating Molly's, their newly brought bar. She was a wily one like that. Her grandparents were standing in front of an old antique door in the picture and Gabby wanted a door just like that one to lead into Molly's. It was a nice door he noted as he sat down in the seat next to her and grabbed the phone out of her hand. But how could he think otherwise when she spoke about it was such a passion. She was putting her everything she had into Molly's. Money, heart and soul. Because that is the kind of person that she was, she committed fully whenever she did something.
"There is a salvage place I use. It can be worth a look." he flicked in when Otis started to worry about the cost.
"Really?" the small, but oh so bright, smile that Gabby gave him was all it took for him to forget all about the crappy day he had had so far. To make Gabby happy and to get her to look at him with that tender emotion in her eyes, was one of the best feelings in the world. It warmed him to know that he had pleased her and there was a small part of him that hoped that she saw what it really was.
"Yeah."
"I'm done with the toilets, Lieutenant." a voice interrupted them, and Matt turned around to see Mills standing next to his chair.
"Good. The showers need a good cleaning too."
The two of them stared at each other, trying to figure out what the other person's game was and how they would react next, until Mills broke their stare to look over at Gabby. Matt did as well and saw how Gabby gave Mills a sympathetic smile, but she did not come to his defence either and Mills had to admit defeat and walk away.
It felt like a small victory to just watch Mills walk away, while he stayed behind with the girl. Event though the showdown technically wasn't about Gabby, it felt good to through a little shade on Mills in front of her, how petty that may sound. It remained unsaid that they were both in love with the same girl, but they both knew it and it currently fuelled the fire.
Matt turned back towards Gabby and looked into her deep, brown eyes and he was just about to lose himself in them when he was interrupted by the bell.
"Squad 3. Truck 81. Ambulance 61. Drive by shooting…" the pair of them got up quickly and ran out to the trucks, joined by the rest of the house.
When they arrived at the scene, it wasn't pretty. Three cars had piled up in the middle of the road so badly that you could hardly tell where one ended and the other begun. It was one hell of a mess and the entire neighbourhood had come out of the comfort of their home to watch.
Matt ran over to the first car and looked inside. The man in the driver's seat had a gunshot wound to the head and was unresponsive. But the man in the passenger seat was awake, despite the gaping hole in his chest. Matt tried the handle and found the door jammed, but with a little help from Herrmann they managed to get it open so Dawson and Shay could do their job and stabilize the men and take them to the hospital.
There was nothing they could do for the driver, so they went for the passenger instead. Matt and Herrmann were helping the paramedics move him onto the gurney when a car came to a screeching halt by them and then three loud bangs bounced between the buildings surrounding the scene.
Everyone hit the ground to take cover. Gabby landed in front of him, slightly under the gurney, with a shocked expression on her face. She didn't look frightened when she met his eyes, but then again Matt wasn't all that surprised. One of the many things he liked about Gabriella Dawson was that she was though, she didn't scare easily or freeze up and back off in situations like these. It was an admirable trait, but it could also make her act recklessly. She would run in head first, without any concern for her own safety. But it was also what made her the kickass paramedic that everyone admired her for.
Three more gunshots rang out and glass and gravel rained down over them. After they heard the car drive off again at high speed everyone looked up, slightly startled, and took in their surroundings. The crowd that had watched them work was screaming and running in different directions to get away from the line of fire.
Matt's eyes automatically went over to Dawson. It was a reflex, not something he was aware of. He just had a need to know that she was alright. But the sight that met him, almost made his heart stop. Gabby was now sitting up in the same spot as before, holding onto her arm with her face taut up in pain. Everyone else on the scene was busy trying to get their victims out of the cars, in case the perpetrators came back a third time. But Matt only had eyes for Gabby, the other people in need completely out of his mind.
"Dawson!" he called out and gained the rest of the house's attention. He was by her side in seconds and cradled her in his arms. "Are you okay?"
"My arm…" she groaned, and Matt could see the blood coming from beneath her fingers.
"Chief!" Shay called. "We need to get this guy to hospital now or is not going to make it."
The Chief looked between them all quietly for a moment. From Shay and Severide, who had come up to them, to him and Dawson. Then he sprung into action.
"Mills!"
"Yeah, Chief?"
"You go into the ambulance with Dawson and Shay. Drive them over to Lakeshore. The rest of you get working on those cars, the other ambos are on the way."
Matt helped Gabby up and into the front seat of the ambulance as the rest of the guys got to work. Her face was taking on the same shade as a ghost and the blood kept flowing from the wound in her arm. He tried to stop the flow with some gauze he had gotten from Shay, but if she didn't get to the hospital in the next couple of minutes, he feared it could leave some permanent damage behind.
Tears had gathered in her eyes and it tugged on Matt's hear to see her in so much pain. She had gone from looking so fierce and ready for a fight, to so tiny and fragile it physically hurt him. He placed his free hand on her cheek and tried to offer her some sort of comfort.
"You're going to be just fine!" he said strongly just as Mills jumped into the driver's seat.
It was hard for him to let go of her and watch the ambulance take off. He knew that she was not going to be alone and that she knew most of the staff at the emergency unit at Lakeshore, but it didn't do much to calm him. He wanted to be there to hold her and make sure that she was alright, to hear from the doctor that there was no lasting damage. For a second there he had been, but Mills came took over his place. Or taken back his own place. Maybe it was just Matt who had filled in for Mills, he was Dawson's boyfriend after all.
Matt watched the ambulance until it disappeared around the corner before he went back to work. No matter how much he wanted to just stand there and think about Dawson and pray for her to be alright, he knew that he couldn't. There were people trapped inside the other cars that depended on him to get them out. Worrying had to wait.
