All Men Are Afraid in Battle-
The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty
~ George S. Patton
A/N: This one is brutal. Sorry about that and please, don't hate anyone …Unless it's me. You can totally hate me :(
Chapter Seven
Often These Days
Kelly was certain he had asked Casey not to bring Gabby to their place today. She'd been a frequent guest lately, as the two had begun to rekindle their relationship, but Casey could give him this one day. Except not - Gabby was obviously more important than a roommate's comfort or lack thereof.
"What is she doing here?" Kelly confronted Matthew about it without even saying hello, without taking off his boots or jacket. He heard the voices, barged into the living room, saw them sitting on the couch, two birds chirping lovingly, and he lashed out right away.
"Well..." Casey lifted his eyes, startled, "she..."
Gabby was much quicker and more direct in her response. She spun and glared at Kelly, her expression provocative and sinister.
"Excuse me?" she seethed. "'She' is right here!"
Despite overwhelming weariness, Kelly still had fight in him.
"Okay," he responded matching her stare rage for rage. "What are you doing here, Dawson?"
Casey stood up and took a step toward Kelly, trying to place himself between them.
"We had some things to discuss," he addressed Kelly but kept his hand near Gabby's arm, ready to catch her if the confrontation turned physical. "Gabby is my girlfriend and she has every right to be here. Get used to it."
"But... Today?" Kelly felt lightheaded. He had a more elaborate retort on the tip of his tongue but decided to restrain himself to only those two words. He felt chills on his nape.
"Well, I'm sorry," Casey's response came muffled, over the sound of his heart thudding in his ears.
Without another word, Kelly retreated to his room. He didn't need those two to watch him fall apart. Before he closed the door, his ears caught Gabby's angry "You're not going to leave it like this, are you?"
Kelly closed the door, sat on his bed, elbows on knees and hid his face in his hands. It didn't take long for Casey to follow Gabby's heed. He entered without knocking.
"I think you should apologize," he stated in a cold tone, arms folded on his chest and lips pursed.
"I think you should leave my room," Kelly retorted.
"Look, me and Gabby are back together, so, like it or not, she's going to be coming here more often now. This may not be her apartment at the moment, but she's a welcome guest and you had no right to treat her like you just did! You should apologize." Matt stepped away and opened the door wider, with a gesture indicating that Kelly should go ahead and do it right now.
Kelly would. He had reacted too harsh, let his frustrations get the better of him, he was well aware of that. The problem was, he still felt woozy, cold sweat making him shiver and his heart, despite beating slower, still rung in his ears. He couldn't get up right now without risking that he would just fall over and he couldn't make an idiot of himself like this. He couldn't even explain this, his head spinning and his mouth dry.
After a brief hesitation he decided for a curt, "Leave," knowing that the choice would gain him Casey's loathing, but at least it would save him from embarrassment.
Casey's eyes narrowed, nostrils flared but he didn't say anything more, instead turned away and stormed out of the room, not even bothering to close the door. Kelly waited before he stood up to shut them, the stifled but angry voices reaching his ears and making him wish he was anywhere else but in this house.
Matt wanted to scream and throw things. Last shift, especially how it ended, was a nightmare. Then he had to take his pregnant girlfriend to an abortion clinic and support her decision, even though everything in him cried against it. She didn't go through with the procedure, and Matt felt like dancing and singing and offering some sacrifice to any deity who would claim the interference.
But he couldn't because he promised to support Gabby's decision. He promised to support her. He had to share her conviction, at least on the outside and he wanted to, he could see how hard she struggled, how much it all pained her.
Kelly, with his attitude, really wasn't helping right now.
"Can we not think about him?" Casey had to pull Gabby down to make her sit back on the couch. He kept holding both her hands. "His manners, or lack of them, is irrelevant. What I was saying, is that the doctor didn't mean anything wrong," he tried to continue their earlier discussion.
"You're taking her side."
"I'm not taking anyone's side, Gabby. If anything, it's yours. They have been doing this for years, so I presume they know how to handle these situation. It's not so surprising that women sometimes change their mind at the last moment and they have to be prepared for that. Besides, I'm sure there are outside protocols, imposed on them, just like in any other field of medicine. You should know."
"I don't need you to try and convince me not to do it." Gabby turned her face away. It was like she hadn't heard a word he said.
"Am I doing that?" Matt struggled to remain patient. "I'm telling you that you should go back there tomorrow, go through the procedure, talk to them, acting calm and collected..."
"Because otherwise I appear like a loon, is that it?" she cut in.
"Gabby!
"I don't think I want to talk about it now."
Matt bit his lips. He was sure he didn't want to talk about it. He was sure he didn't want to be the one convincing Gabby to kill their child! No, he couldn't think that way, if he started to think that way, he would never be able to support her.
He sighed and wiped his face. Before he could say a word, Gabby pulled her hands from his, hugged him, whispered a "thank you" into his ear and let go.
"What do you want for dinner?" she asked out of the blue and Matt realized that the conversation was over. "I was thinking duck with red curry."
"You want to go out..."
"No. I want to cook. Cooking calms me down. But I have to go shopping first." She stood up not waiting for Matt, took her purse and left with a quick, "Be back in an hour."
Matt spent the next fifteen minutes just sitting on the couch and cooling down. When his head started dropping he moved to his bed and fell asleep before he even lay down.
He got awakened by risen voices in the kitchen. One look at his watch told him that he hadn't even slept two hours. He dragged himself out of bed and opened the door to see Severide leaning on the table, head bowed, eyes closed and Gabby in an apron, fuming and waving a wooden spoon. Vegetables and sauce sizzled in the wok and smelled so delicious that Matt salivated involuntarily.
"I am hungry," Gabby argued, "so I want to eat something. I had a shitty day, you know, and I'm really not in the mood to go out, so I'm cooking. And no, I am not going to throw out something I spent the better part of an hour fixing!"
Throw out? Matt's looked up alarmed. Did Kelly tell her to throw the food away? Was he insane?
"What are you..." he tried to intervene but was ignored.
"Look, I only asked." Kelly shook his head. "And I was polite about it."
"Polite?" Gabby blew out again. "Like, you come at me, with a fake apology for your shitty behavior and follow it immediately with some more shitty behavior? That's being polite?" She turned to Matt and informed him that, "He thinks saying my food stinks so bad it makes him sick is polite!"
"Well, I'm sorry!" Kelly stopped holding back. He took a step forward and hovered over Gabby. "I had a shitty day too, can you believe that?" he yelled and Casey neared them as well, instinctively, trying to protect his girlfriend. "All I wanted was to come back home and have some quiet, but I can't, because you..."
That was enough. "Hey, Kelly!" Matt grabbed his arm. "Chill, okay?"
"Home?" Gabriela obviously didn't need a defender. She closed the distance between the two of them even more, barely inches separating their faces, and she was intimidating even though she had to crane her head. "Your home? Don't forget, Severide, that I rented this apartment with Matt. And we let you live here for a couple of weeks, until you could get back on your feet, because you were so messed up! So how about you finally do that, huh? Grow up! Find your own place."
Well, that was not exactly the direction Casey wanted this conversation to go. Kelly didn't need to be forced into a homeless situation right now.
"Gabby, that's not necessary," he tried and was ignored again.
"Yeah?" Kelly asked and took a step back. His voice broke though and Matt looked up at his face, alarmed.
"If my cooking bothers you so much, why don't you just leave!" Gabby finished him off and Kelly didn't retaliate.
He was breathing fast, through open mouth and he was deathly pale, droplets of sweat beading above his upper lip and on his forehead. He shook his head, turned away and stumbled back to his room. Casey looked after him, then at Gabby, then after Severide again, as a realization hit him. He glanced one final time at Gabby and told her to turn off the heat under the wok.
"You're not serious," she mouthed, completely taken aback. She probably expected Matt to back her up but he disregarded her this time and followed Severide.
Found him in the bathroom, leaning over a sink, water running from the faucet and dripping down his nose and chin. He splashed his face again, as his whole body spasmed. He was obviously fighting nausea and Casey wanted to hit himself over the head that he hadn't noticed. That he hadn't remembered.
"It's been three weeks, hasn't it?" he asked.
"Not now, Casey." Was all the response he got. Kelly was solely focused on not throwing up.
"Did you take your pills?" Casey asked unnecessarily. "I'll go get your pills."
Gabby waited for him in the kitchen, food in the wok still sizzling and still smelling really good, but Casey could well imagine how it might grate Kelly's sense of smell after chemotherapy.
"Are you kidding me?" Gabby charged at him the moment she saw him. "It's not finished and you can't cool wok food in the middle of frying. It will be inedible."
She was right. She must have been right, but Matt really couldn't worry about it now. He had other things that he needed to take care of and he couldn't, because the damn vial wasn't in the medicine cabinet with all the other steroids and antibiotics and analgesics.
"Just do it," he told her wondering if Kelly could keep them in his room, in case he needed them.
"I can't believe you're taking his side!" Gabby uttered.
"This is not about taking sides here, Gabby. Please, give me some credit."
He didn't even look at her. He knew he should have. He knew, he should have explained, should have given her some reason as to why he was acting like this, but he couldn't figure out anything other than a blunt, "Kelly has cancer and I don't know what to do." But he couldn't do that, couldn't say that, because Kelly didn't want the truth about his condition out in the open and besides, Matt couldn't admit to not knowing what to do. He had to act, he had to find solution, that's how he operated, how he was trained, his whole life was about saving others, finding ways out of impossible situations and now he had two such situations on his plate, Kelly and Gabby, and he could only deal with one at a time and he didn't want to deal with either, but it was just like in a burning building. You don't want to go in, but you have to. So you do.
"I can't find them." He came into the bathroom to find Kelly seating on the edge of the bath tub, pale, face glistening with sweat, or maybe just water, his arms going up and down with each laborious breath. "I can't find your pills."
"I couldn't take them now anyway," Kelly rasped in response. "Every six hours and it's been less than two. Have to ride it out." He closed his eyes and nodded. "It's better." Took a couple of breaths and added. "I think it passed for now."
Matt wiped his face. Good. He would take Kelly's words at face value. He nodded. Second floor primary search completed. Time to move on to the first floor.
"I'll..." He waved his hand in a general direction of the kitchen.
"Go," Kelly breathed out. "I'm really sorry."
"I know."
When Matt returned to the living room though, Gabby was dressed and had her bag in her hand.
"What are you..." Casey gaped at her. "Where are you going?"
"You two have a great..." Gabby started and only then Matt realized that she was crying. "I don't know... boyfriends thing going on here!" She wiped her face angrily. "I'll just make myself sparse."
"Don't be ridiculous, Gabby." Matt came up to her, arms outstretched, but he let them fall to his sides before he reached her. Holding her now somehow felt inadequate. Insufficient. Too little too late.
"Oh, so now I'm being ridiculous?" she mocked, but the venom was gone from her voice, the words felt flat. She looked up, eyes shining with tears. "You know how nice it is to hear that the food you prepare makes someone sick?"
"You can't blame him for that." If she only knew. She wouldn't say any of that if she knew.
"Oh. Right."
He should tell her. "Gabby..." But he couldn't.
"No! No, I can't blame him." Gabby sniffed and shook her head. Turned to the door, then back to Matt. "Like I can't blame that doctor, is that right? Is what you told me, earlier, that the doctor wanted good for me and that I was being unreasonable?" She was staring at him and there was no anger in her face, not like before. Only sadness. Despair. "You think I don't know that you were happy? You think I don't know how much you agreed with her? You said it was for my own good, even though she treated me like a murderer."
"That's not how she..."
"And here, you're defending her again!" She hitched a sob. Wiped her face again but without as much conviction, clumsily. "This is why I can't be here right now. Because all of this," she waved her hand, "makes me think that she is right. When I need you the most, in every argument, you are against me." Her arms fell to her sides and she simply stood there, so desolate, so lonely. He wanted to hug her. But he couldn't move.
"Gabby, it's not what this is about," he managed to utter.
"Isn't it? Then prove it." Tears were now running down her face freely, she didn't care anymore. "Tell Kelly that if he doesn't like the smell, he's the one who should leave."
"Gabby..." This was something he couldn't do.
"See? You won't."
Not won't – can't. But she didn't wait. She turned around and left and Matt spoke to the closed door. "He really is sick."
t.b.c.
A/N: 'kay. Feel free to send me hate now. I can take it. :(
