Let it Burn

A/N – Thanks for your reviews!

Two

As they neared their apartment building Severide glanced over to Casey who was leaning on the window fast asleep. Not wanting to alarm him he whispered "Case? Matt we're nearly back... I don't fancy carrying you over the threshold…" nothing, "Matt?" he spoke a little louder, placing his right hand on Casey's left leg.

Casey jerked away from the touch thinking he was back the club only to realise he was in the car with Severide who thankfully didn't say anything about his reaction.

"We're nearly home," Severide stated simply. Casey sat up straighter in his seat and continued to stare blankly out the window until the car pulled up to the kerb. They both got out and headed indoors, Casey was careful with his movements; even after just the short journey he was already feeling much sorer than when he left the hospital. He had no doubt that he'd feel truly awful in the morning.

"You ok?" Severide asked the ghostly white Casey as he dug his apartment key out of his pocket, "We can still go to a hotel? I can grab us a few things and we..."

"I'm fine... It's fine. I don't mind," Casey brushed off his concern.

"Ok…" Severide opened the door and stepped inside to the smell of chemical cleaner. If it weren't for the smell he wouldn't have thought anything had happened in the apartment. He walked to the kitchen and placed the Gatorade and pot of pills on the worktop.

Casey lingered by the door for a moment before stepping inside. Severide noted the lost look on his face, "Do you want something to drink, eat?" he asked as Casey joined him in the kitchen area looking down at the empty floor space where Katya had died. They must have taken the rug, he noted, there had been so much blood.

"I'm good," he replied abruptly not making eye contact as he turned to head to his room.

"Sure? I know it's late..." Severide looked down at his watch, it's nearly 2am, "I can chuck something together and we can put something on the..."

"I said I'm good," Casey snapped and walked off to his room, slamming the door closed leaving Severide shaking his head at the helplessness he felt over the whole situation.

When Severide didn't hear anything from Caseys room he decided he must have just gone to sleep. Thankfully, he thought. He messaged Boden back who he'd called on his way to the hospital earlier. Once Boden was up to date with the situation Severide grabbed himself a beer from the fridge, sat in the lounge started watching a game on mute so as not to disturb Casey. He was going to stay awake for another hour or so just to make sure his friend slept soundly. He should have made him take a couple of the sleeping pills but there would have been no point in even trying after Casey had snapped just at the suggestion of food.

Half an hour later he heard Casey mumbling in his sleep. Severide went over to his bedroom door. He felt like he was intruding as he listened to his friend tossing and turning in his sleep. Severide waited outside in the hope he would fall into a deep sleep. But the mumbling continued and decided enough was enough and knocked on the bedroom door. He didn't expect a response and he didn't get one. "Case?" he called out tentatively, "You all right? Matt?" Severide had hoped he would have been able to wake him from his nightmare just by speaking but he had no luck so opened the bedroom door.

He walked into the darkened room, the light from rest of the apartment shone through the doorway behind him and he saw Casey breathing heavily on top of the duvet. He was still wearing his clothes and even his shoes were still on his feet.

"Case? Come on buddy wake up," Severide leant over him, touching his arm, "Matt?" louder now, trying to rouse him. He didn't want to startle him.

Casey jerked awake and having felt something on his arm scrambled backwards and hit the headboard of the bed with a thump.

"Matty it's me, it's Sev, you're all right, it's just me! Matt?"

Eventually Severides concerned voice penetrated Casey's murky thoughts. When Severide saw him come to his senses he switched the lamp on and the room was eliminated in the dull glow. After a few moments Casey focused on his friend's concerned face, "Sev I'm sor…" he began tiredly.

"Quit apologising," Severide replied quickly, "You need to get changed, at least have a showered, you're still covered in blood Casey."

"Sure…" It was a testament as to how tired and not himself Casey was that he put up no fight and did as Severide said. He showered quickly and dressed in the pyjama pants that Severide dug out for him.

Severide immediately noticed the now darkening bruises on Casey's side when he exited the bathroom topless, "Sore?"

Casey slowly glanced down at his chest, "Nah I'm fine," Severide's eyebrows disbelievingly , "… Maybe a little sore."

"You look awful," Severide said bluntly, although in truth Casey did looked better now he'd showered.

"Thanks…" Casey responded dryly, "… Could have been worse," he added before heading to the kitchen to grab a drink.

Severide followed him and found him lost in thought looking down at the kitchen floor, "Case?" he caught his attention, his eyes were wide and watery, and Severides heart broke at the sight.

"I couldn't…" Casey began quietly, "… Couldn't stop it," he turned away from Severide and looked back down at the floor. Severide waited but Casey said nothing else. Typical.

"Bed," Severide announced gently, "You need sleep," he grabbed the pills and Gatorade from the counter and led his friend to bed, after pulling back the covers he sat Casey down and handed up two pills saying, "You'll feel better, take them," Casey did as he was told and was handed him the drink to swallow them down with. He sank down into the bed and felt the soft covers pulled up over him as he let his eyes fall closed.

Severide waited for Casey to fall asleep before switching off the lamp on the bedside table. He left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar, before going to bed himself. As he lay in bed Severide continued to worry about Casey. He was thankful he took the sleeping pills because at least his body could get some decent rest. With his thoughts on Casey he eventually drifted off to sleep.

Casey woke up slowly and groggily on Sunday morning, there was light escaping into his room through a small gap in the blinds. Looking at the alarm clock he saw the sleeping pills had done their job, it was just after 11am. He got out of bed and changed stiffly into some joggers and an old t-shirt. His entire body ached but his hand was already feeling better but he couldn't shake all the images from last night out of his head or the sound of the gunshot.

Severide was sat on the sofa when he saw Casey emerge from his room and grab a mug of coffee from the pot. He looked more like himself than last night although he still looked pale and a little groggy. With a mug of steaming of hot coffee in his hand Casey sat his aching body down slowly next to his friend on the sofa.

"Morning," Severide looked over to him.

"Yeah… just," Casey shrugged and sipped his coffee.

"So… you feelin' all right?" Severide decided to poach the subject before his friend was fully awake, more chance of an honest answer.

Casey raised his eyebrows, "Fine," he was not going to tell him how he couldn't stop seeing Katya's body on the kitchen floor or the gun aimed at himself. He was thankful for the sleeping pills last night but he wasn't about to admit that to anyone.

"Y'know if you wanna talk about it…"

"I don't," Casey said abruptly.

"Ok then," and Severide dropped the subject knowing that he could easily push his friend away and he would never talk about it. His defences were already up and raised high.

They both sat in silence for a while before Severide realised Casey was the only one at 51 who hadn't heard the latest. "I actually owe you an apology, I guess…" he began and Casey frowned at him questioningly. Sighing before he continued, "So I checked out Rice's story… he was ducking."

"I'm sorry," Casey said sincerely.

"You're sorry?" Severide was surprised, "I backed up his lie… and called you a.."

Casey interrupted him before he could continue, "Sanctimonious prick? Yeah I was there… He was your friend, I'm sorry he lied to you… and besides you've called me worse before."

"Well I am sorry… with everything you had going on too..." Severide sympathised.

"Sev," Casey started sharply, "You're getting dangerously close to soppy with me," he smirked. Casey put his now empty mug down on the coffee table and announced he was going out for a run. He wanted to clear his head. Distract himself.

"You've not eaten anything for… who knows how long!" Severide said in protest to the idea but Casey shot him a look of defiance – you're not my mother - so he put his hands up in mock surrender, "All right, well, I'm gonna join you cause I've not been down to the gym yet."

"Fine. You better keep up," Casey mocked.

After their run they both showered and changed. Stepping out of his room Severide saw Casey with his damp hair looking down at the floor in the kitchen, sighing with concern he asked, "You wanna go out?"

Looking up surprised to see Severide stood there, "Huh? I'm good."

"Beer and some movies then?" Severide suggested because he knew Casey wasn't as fine as he was letting on.

"Kelly go out if you want, I'm more than capable of keeping myself entertained," he said.

"Guys night in sounds good to me," Severide didn't want to leave his friend alone to wallow.

"I'm fine on my own. I'm fine," Casey insisted.

"I know," Severide replied lightly. After rummaging through one of the kitchen draws he dug out some take-away menus, held them all up and asked, "So what do you want?"

Knowing better than insist he was fine and wasn't hungry Casey let Severide choose pizza. If he acted like nothing was wrong he hoped his friend would stop the concerned glances and leave him on his own. But everything was wrong. Images from the previous night kept running though his head. The run had helped him focus on something else and he was glad he would be at the firehouse tomorrow, he actually hoped for a busy shift to keep his mind occupied and to stop everyone asking how he was doing.

They both sat on the sofa waiting for the pizzas to arrive when Casey's phone rang. He silenced the phone and put it back down on the coffee table.

Severide eyed him questioningly, "You should probably answer that."

"It's just Dawson. I'll see her in the morning," and before Severide could say anything he blurted out, "I slept with her. A few months ago. Not my best decision. Was tryin' to distance myself from her and I slept with her… I'm her lieutenant."

"Oh…" Severide mouthed, then he almost laughed, "You must really not wanna talk about last night if you're now telling me you slept with Dawson…"

Casey stood up and threw his arms open, "What do you want me to do!? Tell you what happened? Tell you what I did?" he yelled so fiercely that Severide was taken aback, shocked at the outburst.

"Case… I was just joking, you know that really,"

"I'm sorry," he shook his head and collapsed back down onto the sofa, "Dunno what's wrong with me," he forced a smile even though he and Severide both knew what was wrong. Casey would just continue to brush last night's events aside.

Changing to subject so Casey felt more comfortable Severide asked, "So I chose the food, you wanna pick the movie?" he smiled and chucked the remote over to him.

During the movie Severide kept glancing at Casey who was absentmindedly pulling his pizza apart before taking a few bites every now and then but at least he was eating, Severide hadn't seen him eat anything else all day. He knew Casey was going to keep everything bottled up inside until it became too much just like after Hallie had died. His friend had gone through so much and Severide just wanted to be there for him but he knew him too well. He would keep insisting he was fine even if he were bleeding to death; he never wanted to be anyone's burden.

The movie ended and as the credits rolled Severide took the pizza boxes to the kitchen, Casey had eaten nearly half of his thankfully, he came back to the sofa with two beers, handing one to Casey as he sat back down.

"Your choice," Casey said tiredly as he passed Severide the remote. As Severide began scrolling through the movie choices Casey looked across to him and asked so quietly he was barely heard, "What would you have done?" Severide looked at those big blue pleading eyes, Casey needed reassurance, he needed to know that what he did was ok, that he wasn't a bad person.

"I'm sure I would have done the same," Severide responded but knew Casey needed more because that wasn't really the question he wanted answering, he wanted to know if what he did was right thing, it was tearing him up inside, "You did the right thing Matt."

"I'm not so sure…" Casey frowned, "I killed him Sev… If I'd just waited..."

"Look, there's no point in thinking about all the 'what ifs'. You did what you did. It was self-defence. They killed your friend. They were going to kill you. You didn't know how it was going to turn out. You took control of the situation. And thank God you did or I might not be sat with you right now. He was A bad guy. And there's nothing wrong with having one less of them in the world. Any one of us in that situation would have had to do the same to survive," Severide tried to reassure him.

"Sev…" Casey looked away as if he was concerned about what Severide would think of him, "… Part of me is…" he looked back to his friend and saw his empathetic expression willing him to continue, "Part of me is glad I did it… and that makes me feel sick… but he pulled me. He pulled me off her. I tried to stop them so I could get back to her. If I'd stopped them from taking me. If I'd stopped them I could have helped her. I tried. I really did. But I couldn't and now I can't stop seeing her."

"Matt I'm so sorry," Severide held Caseys arm reassuringly, "I know you did everything you could. You and I both know that sometimes no matter how hard we try we can't have changed things that happened. They're out of our control. There wasn't anything you could have done to save her. And you know I'm not just making any of this up to make you feel better. It's true. And you did the right thing," he reiterated.

"I guess," Casey sighed, though truly he didn't really know what to say, he just wished none of it had happened. Casey was silent once more and Severide understood that he had done enough talking, but it was better than before, a few years ago Severide knew it would have taken a lot longer to get anything out of him. Severide passed the remote to him and suggested he chose the film as there was nothing Severide wanted to watch.

Not long into the chosen movie Casey fell asleep with his head resting on the arm of the sofa. Severide smiled down at Casey's peaceful sleeping form as he got up to turn the TV off and fetch a blanket. He moved Casey's legs up onto the sofa and gently placing the blanket on top Severide went to his room, leaving his door ajar so he could hear if his friend woke up. He fell asleep soon after his head hit the pillow, all the worrying was tiresome.

Casey woke up with a start. He found himself trapped awkwardly on the sofa as a blanket had become tangled around his heavily breathing form. The TV was off and the apartment was dark. After untangling himself from the blanket he got up and quickly switched all the lights on.

Severide woke up slowly to a bright light shining through his door. He got up quietly and glanced through to see Casey sat on the sofa with his head in his hands. The floorboard creaked slightly as he shifted his weight. Casey heard and quickly spun his head around. He would have been directly looking at Severide with his bleary eyes if the shadow of the dark bedroom wasn't obscuring him. Severide remained still, didn't want Casey to think he was checking up on him even though all he wanted to do was make sure he was ok but Casey was… Casey. He may have spoken to him earlier but he wouldn't want to be seen like this. Severide was going to leave him to his privacy even though his heart urged him to go and comfort him but comfort him with what? All he could was repeat his earlier words until they sunk in. Severide quietly went back to his bed and lay there. He could hear Casey pacing as he drifted off to sleep.

Pacing around the apartment Casey had one thing on his mind. The notebook. He wanted phone Antonio until he saw the time and thought he'd better do it at a more reasonable hour of day. If they'd found the notebook they'd have the evidence they needed. But surely Antonio would have called him if it was all over. He continued to pace the apartment. He wanted to do something. To know what was happening. He should have called Antonio earlier. If something had changed he would have been told. No. He should have called Antonio. Or maybe they didn't want him to know. What if he had gone and messed everything up at the club and now there was no chance in finding the notebook and prosecuting them? No… if anything what happened at the club was only going to incriminate them further… All these thoughts kept running through his mind. He had no idea what was happening. He felt so out of control and the only thing he could do was wait. He hated waiting. A few more hours and it would be an appropriate time to call Antonio and then he would be on shift. Yes. Back to normalcy, that would help.

Casey had got himself so worked up whilst pacing the apartment he took another shower. Standing up the jets of water he closed his eyes and leant his forehead on the wall letting the hot water cascade down his back. He felt exhausted. He opened his eyes again and shook his head awake before images of Katya's body could flood his vision. He sighed deeply as he finished washing; he'd seen dead bodies in worst states, seen people die before, held the hand of more than one dying person, so why couldn't he shake this?

Once he changed into his blue t-shirt and jeans and re-wrapped his hand up Casey made a pot of coffee. He wasn't going to sleep. His few hours of sleep earlier had been so disturbed he was sure that it had provided him with no rest and he didn't want to try again. Instead he switched the TV on, put it on mute and watched it mindlessly until the sun began to rise.

He sent Antonio a message asking him to call when he had the chance. Severide would be up soon so he freshened himself up in the bathroom, he didn't want any more questions on his wellbeing. He splashed his face with water and looked up at his reflection in the mirror as the water dripped off into the sink. He was pale and there were large dark bags under his eyes. He could already imagine his whole team asking how he was doing when he got to the firehouse, if he turned up looking like this they were not going to believe all of his 'I'm fine's. He tidied up his bed hair and looked much more like the truck lieutenant everyone was used to.

Severide woke up and went straight to the kitchen to grab a mug of coffee and started to take it back to his room when he saw Casey emerge from the bathroom dressed and ready for work. He looked like hadn't gotten any sleep last night, "Morning," he spoke softly to Casey who just acknowledged him as he went to get another caffeine hit. Severide closed his bedroom door behind leaving Casey in the kitchen drinking another coffee. Once dressed he stepped out of his room again and saw Casey staring down at the kitchen floor, he could only imagine what he was thinking, "You know I think Chief would understand if you decided to sit this shift out. I think everyone would."

"New candidate starts today. Got to be there," Casey replied setting his mug down on the kitchen counter, "Anyway, I'm good," he smiled at Severide who just looked at him with concern, he didn't believe him.

"Heard you pacing around last night…" Severide broached carefully.

"This thing isn't over until I find Katya's notebook," he replied as he fastened his watch, "…I'll relax then." He wished Antonio had called or just updated him.

"All right," Severide conceded and realising the time started to head out the door and get to the firehouse and questioned, "Ride together?"

"Thanks but I'm not ready," he replied.

Severide looked him up and down, "Ok… guess I'll see you later then."

"See ya… and thanks Kelly."

TBC