Hey Guys,

So I am so thankful for all the love and support this story has been getting.

A lot of you have been asking for updates and more chapters. I originally intended for it to just be that one chapter but you guys just want more. So here it is.

Due to the fact that I had already intended this story to be finished, I did struggle with how I should continue. I hope this lives up to your satisfaction. I am still trying to figure out how I want this story to go, now that it is a multi -chapter fic. So, I am going to need some time so please be patient with me.

if you have any suggestions on what you want me to include in the story or anything, please let me know and I will try to incorporate as many suggestions from you guys as I can if I feel it would be good to include.

I don't know if I am happy with this chapter or not but here you go, please let me know what you think.

Love you all

Everyone from the firehouse had just left the hospital room, leaving Casey and Dawson alone. He looked over to her to find her eyes drooping as she tried to stay awake.

"Hey," Casey whispered over to her, making her turn to look at him. "Get some sleep, it's been a long few hours with everyone visiting." he said whilst stroking her head, soothingly.

"No, I'm fine." Gabby replied, trying to be convincing…but failing. Casey gave her a pointed look that said that he's not buying it.

She let out a long sigh, which then turned into a yawn, "Ah, fine. I'll have some rest."

"Good, you need it, after…" Casey paused, not finishing the sentence, not wanting to remember finding her tied to that pole, see the blood around her, see her unconscious body, see the tear trails on her cheeks. Instead he just looked at her with a smile and then kissed her forehead and her hand which he held as Dawson closed her eyes.

"Please don't go. Stay here…with me." Dawson mumbled, eyes closed.

Casey squeezed her hand and replied, "I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying right here." he promised her.

Its been around 10 minutes since Dawson fell asleep and Casey hadn't moved an inch. As he looked over her, he couldn't help but remember that feeling, that sinking feeling when he saw that the ambo wasn't in the garage and that Brett and Gabby wasn't back.

That feeling was the same feeling of dread when he realised that 51 was called to Hallie's clinic when it was consumed in flames; burning down, Hallie still inside. That feeling of panic and fear flooding through his whole body back when Hallie was in danger. That feeling happened again, today with Gabby; his wife, the love of his life, but the feeling with Gabby was more intense, like a fire engulfing him.

If Gabby didn't make it…if she…no! She's here, right here, in front of him, alive. That is all that mattered.

Casey let out a sigh of relief, feeling his own tears flow down his cheeks, a lump formed in his throat, as he gripped Gabby's hand tightly, not tight to hurt her or wake her, but tight enough to ensure her that he's here, right here, and to ensure me that she is right there. Alive.

After hearing Matt promise Gabby that he is not leaving her side, she let her body and mind succumb to the darkness and relax.

She remember seeing the bright flash from the nozzle of the shot gun. The feeling of the wet stickiness of her own blood from her abdomen. Her ears ringing and heart thumping in her chest. The look of shock and horror on Brett's face. The pain of being shot, how it felt like her insides were on fire. Being in and out of consciousness. Feeling the knife Tracey had punctured her shoulder and legs multiple times. The pain. Oh, the pain. She remembered screaming.

She could hear it so clearly. Her own screaming. And now she could feel pain, and wires and hands. God, the beeping is back. She wished someone would stop the damn beeping. It was so loud. Make it stop. The pain. The beeping. The screaming. Make it stop!

Dawson's eyes flew open to see Casey loom over her, a worried expression on his face, his mouth moving. What was he saying? Gabby then saw some doctors and nurses rush in. She noticed all the machines and wires. She couldn't breathe. Why couldn't she breathe? What was happening?

That's when Dawson felt a pair of hands grabbing both her cheeks and turned her head. Matt. He tried to talk to her. She couldn't hear him. She couldn't…

"Breathe, Gabby, breathe. Baby, you need to breathe, just breathe." Dawson finally heard Matt's desperate voice, it sounded so distant but she could hear him!

Gabby tried to breathe, just like he told her to. In. out. Inhale. Exhale.

She grabbed onto his hands, to feel him, touch him.

As Dawson's breathing normalised, her eyes finally focused and all she could see is Matt's blue eyes, the eyes she loved so much.

"Matt." Gabby breathed out, as she began to sob. He pulled his wife into his chest and climbed onto the side of the bed.

"It's okay, baby, I'm here. I'm right here. You just had a panic attack. You're safe."

Gabby gripped onto him, his shirt, his arms, as he held on to her tight in his arms repeating the same things over and over into her hair, "It's okay, you're safe, I got you, you're safe."

She was safe. She was safe. She was safe.

As they started to leave the hospital, Brett's mind couldn't stop thinking back to that basement, back to what happened. What she nearly did. Was she really going to cut Billy's throat? Brett was brought out of her thoughts when she felt a warm hand on her arm and as she looked up, she saw the Chief looking down at her with concern in his eyes as he pulled Brett aside from everyone else.

"Brett, I know what you have experienced today has been, indescribable, but-"

Brett cut him off abruptly, not even thinking of her next words, "With all due respect, Chief, you don't. You don't know what I have just experienced. What we have experienced," she gestured back to Dawson's room, "You don't. I know you're trying to be supportive and trying to help but you can't. You weren't there. None of you were. Half the time we were in there, Dawson was unconscious, bleeding out." Brett's voice involuntarily rose, "I know what you are going to say, because this isn't my first time in this kind of situation. This isn't my first time being practically kidnapped, held hostage at gunpoint, trying to fix something or someone that couldn't be fixed. Its not my first time in this situation and as long as I am a medic, it won't be my last." She felt everyone from 51 and some doctors look her way, but she didn't care. She didn't stop, she couldn't stop. "I love being a medic, helping those who needs help, making a difference, having a family I never thought I would get because of the job I do. In that retrospect, I feel like the luckiest girl alive, but everything else. This, being here, after what we've been through, I don't, I don't know if…" Brett felt her tears and felt as her hands shook.

"Okay, Brett, it's okay-"Chief tried to console her.

"No, it's not okay. None of this is okay, I can't, I can't do this." And with that, Brett looked around and saw everyone with sadness in their eyes. Pity. She didn't want pity. She never wanted any of this. Brett started walking backward slowly until she saw those eyes. Those brown eyes that left her knees weak. Antonio. No. She couldn't be dealing with this, with any of this.

Without even knowing what her body was doing, she ran down the hospital corridors and threw a door open, then opened the door to a toilet stall and heaved.

Brett was on the floor for a few seconds, just heaving. And crying. She could hear and feel so much pain through her own sobs. This wasn't what she wanted. When she became a medic, she did not sign up for being help hostage, twice. Its too much. Its all too much. No one understood. No one apart from…Dawson.

If it weren't for Dawson there with her, she honestly didn't know if she would have had the energy to fight Tracey back, alone.

She didn't know how long she'd been sat on the toilet floor in the hospital, but her crying had stopped, now it's just those annoying hiccups. She got hiccups every time she cried this bad.

The toilet door creak open, and someone called out her name.

"Sylvie." Antonio.

He found Brett in the first stall, as he looked down at her with the same old pity in his eyes that everyone else had. Brett looked away. She felt so angry, yet so tired.

Antonio joined her on the floor. He didn't say anything. She appreciated that.

"I think I would be dead if it weren't for Gabby." Brett croaks out. It was true. If Dawson wasn't with her, she would have no reason to fight back.

"And she would be dead if it weren't for you." Antonio says. Brett looked up and found him already looking at her intently, showing her that he meant what he said.

"I just don't think I can do this anymore Antonio. Every time the ambo rolls out, Dawson and I never know what is waiting for us. Every call is unpredictable." Brett started to open-up to him. "I became a medic because we make a difference. I make a difference. And I loved that about this job. I loved it. But I don't know. Is being a paramedic worth my life?"

Brett felt Antonio put his hand on her face, making her turn to look at him. "You know, the amount of times I've had this conversation with myself about being a cop…but you know what I always tell myself? If we don't put down our lives for those who need it, who will? Who else will walk through danger to help someone? If not us, then who?"

Brett thought over what he had just told her. 'If not us, then who?'

"You just have to keep reminding yourself why you chose this job, why you chose being a medic, and if you can see yourself being anything else? Then there's your answer."

Brett looked into his eyes, searching for something, she didn't know what though. Brett gave him a small smile.

"Thank you." Brett whispered out.

He let out a chuckle then stood up, as he offered out a hand for her. She took it without hesitation. "Everyone's gone home. I said I'll come and get you. Let me take you home?" he asked.

"Yeah," Brett nodded, "I'd like that very much."

Once Gabby had calmed down, she looked up at Casey with those big brown eyes that he fell in love with every time.

"I don't think I can ever fall asleep again, Matt. I keep seeing it all happening again." She told him, her voice cracking. "How am I ever going to get through this?"

Casey turned to look at her, wiping the loose tears that spilled down her cheeks. "The same way we get through everything else. Together, and with me by you side, every step of the way."

She let out a sigh as she relaxed into him, "I love you, Matt."

"I love you, too. Everyday."

And they will. Get through this. Day by day. Together. Like they always did.

As they told each other that they loved each other, Dawson couldn't help but feel grateful that she had Matt, now more than ever. If he weren't with her, she didn't know what she'd do, how she would be getting through this.

She was so thankful for him. After everything they had endured, it was all worth it in the end.

Dawson looked up at Casey who looked down at her and said the words that meant so much to her and held so much emotion. Those words that Casey said to her, that she was saying to him now.

"I don't know where I'd be without you."

His blue eyes, full of acknowledgment of when he'd said those same words, he kissed her forehead and whispered.

"You never have to find out."

And that right there, those words, full of sincerity, honesty. That was why she loved him. He gave her hope when she needed it the most. And today, she really needed it.

Dawson let out a sigh of content, right in that moment. She knew that she was going to have a long road ahead of her and Brett. But together, they could get through anything.

Because that's what family does.

They lift each other up.