Warning: The story contains spoilers for season 3, 2 and 1

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or the plot of Chicago Fire and Chicago PD. I do not own the lyrics of the songs used. I do not own the text taken directly from the show. This story is intended for fun only and I am not making any money with it!

Chapter 2

For a first night in a week Kelly made his way to Matt's place after having a couple of shots at Molly's with the guys. He was a bit annoyed that nobody had taken him seriously about the trip to Vegas, but he had already made up his mind - he was going there, with or without his Squad buddies. Casey had told Gabby to make sure Kelly gets to their place this time and had gone home early to wait for his friend. So after the second beer and third tequila shot, Cruz and Otis had made sure to get Kelly a taxi home.

Kelly frowned, having just stepped into the living room. Matt was sitting on the couch, looking too serious for the mood the squad Lieutenant was in. So he decided to just ignore him and headed towards the guest room, feeling Casey's eyes piercing through his back.

"If you wanna say something, just say it!" Severide snapped, getting tired of the pity Matt was looking him with. Instead of getting into the room, he turned around, ready for the confrontation that was about to happen.

"Vegas, huh?"

"If you're gonna lecture me again, I'm out of here." Kelly threatened, looking at the door.

"Can we just talk?" Matt replied as calmly as possible.

"About?"

"The way you're dealing, or can I say, avoid dealing with Shay's death." The mentioning of her name immediately triggering tears in Kelly's blue eyes. He sighed but made his way to the couch and just crashed next to Matt without looking at him. "Getting pissed here, or in Vegas, won't bring her back." Casey told him quietly and it felt like Kelly wasn't gonna say anything, again. But for his surprise he heard the "no" his friend mumbled with the corner of his mouth. "Then what are you doing? – Trying to get yourself, or somebody else on shift killed? You know, every single night when I wake up in the middle of the night and you're not here I wonder if you've ended up in a ditch! Then after you show up on shift looking like hell I have to tell people that it's just a rough time for you and you'll come to your senses soon, but you know what Kelly, I don't believe that anymore myself."

A barely noticeable smile crossed Kelly's face and disappeared as quickly as it had come, replaced by more sadness. "You sound just like her." He mumbled more to himself than to Matt.

"So maybe I'm right. Listen, the only way to get past this is to allow yourself to grieve, not pretend that nothing's happened. Sooner or later you'll have to admit to yourself that she is gone!"

"I know! She died in my hands, remember?!"

"It's not your fault!"

"Yeah…" Kelly murmured ironically. "Shay used to say that after Andy died because I couldn't vent the roof…She was the only one I could trust, man!

"You can trust me."

"Better not…anyone who gets close to me gets hurt." And like that, Kelly jumped up and locked himself into Matt's guest room, leaving Casey to stare at the empty spot on the couch.

Xxx

Next morning Kelly got up early and sneaked out of the apartment just before Gabby went into the kitchen to make some coffee. She was feeling tired after having discussed the conversation between her boyfriend and Kelly with Casey until four in the morning the previous night. She heard the slamming of the door but couldn't do anything to bring him back. Dawson could feel his pain…the same pain that had settled into her heart. But she had her exciting new life of a firefighter to distract her from the bad memories…what Kelly had was the alcohol. Even though Dawson was concerned about her friend, she wasn't really in a place to offer him any comfort. This was eating her inside out as she did want to do something, anything, to erase the pain from Kelly's heart. She was sick and tired of watching him destroy his life and career, and what's more, she knew that Shay wouldn't have wanted that. But every time she had tried having a word with Kelly he had made sure to push her back with harsh comments and bitter words that had made her feel terrible.

***Flashback***

Dawson, Casey, Boden, Otis and Cruz were already at the cemetery Shay funeral was going to be held at. It was a dark, cloudy day but the pain in their hearts was so much that no one could really feel the cold. Through all the people who had come to say their last goodbyes to their dear friend, they could see Shay's parents talking to the priest. They were nice people in their sixties, who despite not being very close to their daughter were deeply hurt by her loss.

"I'm so sorry Wallace." Boden was pulled out of his memories by Benny Severide's voice. Yes, he had promised Voight that he would stay out of Chicago for a while, but he couldn't miss the funeral. He hadn't been there for a big part of his son's life, but Benny knew how important Shay was for Kelly and couldn't leave him alone again.

"Thanks..."

"Kelly?" Severide senior asked after not seeing his son anywhere around.

"Over there." Otis pointed a dark figure in the distance, away from all the people. Kelly was leaning against a tall tree, trying desperately to avoid everyone's looks and questions. He had come to the funeral with Casey and Gabby and unfortunately had met Shay's parents just after getting out the car. They had made it clear that they blamed him for their daughter's death, hurting him even more if that was possible. Deep down Kelly knew they were just looking for somebody to blame in order to suppress their pain and he was the easiest target, but he already felt guilty enough. He had snapped at them harshly before heading away to avoid further confrontations.

"That's not fair." Gabby mumbled without taking her eyes off Kelly. She knew exactly how her friend was feeling, knew what heavy weigh her own guilt was and couldn't imagine anyone dumping more on them. "It's not his fault." Having said this she let go of Matt's firm grip and walked to the place Kelly was standing.

"Your dad's here" Dawson didn't know what else to say. Actually, she had no idea how to help Kelly but she couldn't just let him stand there alone. Shay would have killed her for not being there for him.

"Great, he just won a "dad of the year" medal." Kelly smirked sarcastically, not giving a damn who was there…all that mattered was who wasn't, who would never be there again. He didn't want to look at the group of people from fifty-one as it would remind him that one person was missing, the one person in the world he truly loved.

"Come on, everyone's over there, you need to be with friends." Dawson pushed him further.

"What I need is for people to stop telling me what I need or have to do!" Kelly barked louder than he intended. "Look Dawson, if you wanna sooth you guilty conscious by saving somebody or playing the hero I am not the right man, sorry! Go find another victim!"

***end of flashback***

Kelly drove to the nearest coffee place to get the so much needed cup of hot steaming Americano. He put his cup on a table at the corner of the room and took out his mobile, calling the first Vegas hotel that popped up in his mind to book a room. He didn't care how much this trip would cost him – all that mattered was having so much fun that he would finally forget about…about everything. He had been trying to do that, forget, for over two months now, but the nasty world just kept reminding him about her, about his loss. The memories of Shay were everywhere – at fifty-one, Molly's, the car he had managed to sell ten days earlier, not to mention people constantly reminding him that she was dead… He had been avoiding driving past their old apartment building, shops and bars they used to go to. And still, the pain was embedded into his heart like a nail into a coffin, not leaving space for other feelings.

Kelly spent the rest of the day fixing the boat of an ex firefighter in his late sixties he had pulled out of a fire long time ago. He and Shay had put a lot of effort to save the man and his wife from their burning home one cold December night and ever since then the old couple had been trying to return the favour by being there for them whenever they needed. George had asked Kelly to have a look at the engine of his boat, named after his younger daughter who he had lost because of cancer 25 years earlier, and Kelly had happily agreed. Having something to work on was the only way for him to stop thinking about her and avoid getting drunk in a desperate attempt to switch off his brain.

"I miss the sparkle in your eyes." The man, George, approached him with two cold beers in hand. "You have to start taking care of yourself, boy. Why don't you come home for dinner tonight, Trudy would love to see you?"

"Better not…I'm not the best company right now."

"Come on, you have been avoiding us since…"

"Please…don't say it." Kelly closed his eyes, suppressing his emotions. Every time anyone mentioned Shay, or the fact that she was gone, a wave of tears immediately flooded his eyes. He was sick and tired of people seeing them, seeing how weak he was.

"Kelly, listen, I lost a child 25 years ago and it still hurts to even think about her. You'll have to accept it sooner or later or it will eat you alive."

"How?! We were supposed to be there for each other, always…and I wasn't there!...We were in a tough spot. I had plans to take her on a trip to Vegas and simply forget about the rest of the world, play some crabs, talk about the things going on in our lives… ironically the world had other plans for us, huh?!"

"You still blame yourself, don't you?" George looked into the filled with terror blue eyes of his friend. Kelly had never said it loudly, but it was clear that he felt guilty about calling Shay into that building and leaving the paramedics alone to check on their victim.

"If I have called them a minute later…if I have stayed to make sure everything was alright she would…!"

"Too many if's, don't you think so?" George cut him off before Kelly had the chance to finish. "Both of you did exactly what you had to do. I'm not saying it's fair, Kelly, but it's not your fault…and please, don't do anything stupid on that trip you're planning."

"Who told you?" Kelly grimaced, already knowing the answer. After the fire in George house it had turned out that he and Boden knew each other from before.

"Everyone's worried about you!"

"I don't care. I already said that to Chief – I do my job, but my life outside the firehouse is my business."

"Okay. I'm not getting into that with you right now." George gave up, feeling that Kelly was getting agitated. "Come on, let's go home, you can fix that boat another time."

"No…thanks for the invitation but I'm gonna fix the engine and head back. Say hello to Trudy from me…Another time maybe."

"As you wish my boy…just keep in mind that you're always welcomed into our home, no matter when, what time or in what circumstances, you hear me?"

"Yeah".

Xxx

Kelly spent the rest of the night at a random bar, drinking alone. He didn't go to Matt's apartment afterwards, avoiding having another argument. Instead, he crawled into his quarters a few minutes after half three in the morning, grateful that Second Watch was on a call and there was nobody to lecture him this time. What he didn't know was that Second Watch Chief was in a hospital and Boden had agreed to cover his shift.

Chief and the other guys returned half an hour later, having been called at a crash scene between two trucks. Boden grabbed a cup of coffee from the kitchen and headed towards his office to fill in some paperwork when noticed that the lights in Kelly's bunk area were on. Stepping closer, he took a look through the only window without blinds on and noticed his Lieutenant's jacket laying on the floor. Nothing else could be seen inside but Boden assumed that Kelly was probably already asleep after a night out. There was no point in knocking on the door to wake him up as an argument with a drunk Kelly would not prove to be very effective, probably pushing him even further away from them.

"What am I gonna do with you?!" Chief mumbled quietly, heading to his office. He closed the door and crashed on his chair, leaving all the paperwork for later. His thoughts were preoccupied with worry about the dead man walking. Ironically, the only person able to get through to Kelly was the source of his pain this time. Half an hour later Boden silently made the decision to give his Lieutenant the chance to go to that trip to Vegas. He was hoping that a trip with the Squad guys would help and allow them to bond, and talk. But what also was in Chief's mind was that he was done watching one of the best firefighters he had ever met destroy his life like that. He was going to approach Severide at the end of their shift and tell him that it was either quitting drinking after coming back from Vegas, or losing Squad. What Boden didn't know was that Kelly was going to end up going there on his own, without anyone to stop him from doing anything stupid like marrying a woman that would bring even more troubles.

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Thank you all for the support and reviews, you're awesome! I know that there isn't much action in this part but I had to write it to set the scene for the following chapters. Please review! Any suggestions for the future development of the story are welcomed and much appreciated!