6 x 13 – Hiding Not Seeking

Someone knocked at the door. Kelly looked at the clock on the DVD player. It was coming up on 10pm, kind of late for a visitor, but that usually meant family business.

"Hey, Stella-" he stopped short. Stella had dozed off and he didn't want to wake her.

Gently, he lifted her legs and slid down to the end of the couch and half climbed over the arm so she could stay asleep.

Another knock at the door grated on his nerves. He started toward the door, hissing under his breath. "Someone better be bleeding."

At the door, he undid the lock and swung the door open. "Zach?"

The Hazmat Captain shifted from one foot to the other and looked away before looking back at Kelly. "Hey, uh, sorry so late, but I went by Molly's and Stella wasn't there."

Kelly waited for him to continue, his arms folded across his chest.

"So, I was hoping that maybe Stella was home?"

Looking back at the couch, Kelly felt a muscle tick in his cheek. Just when he thought they were done with Hazmat Zach, here he was on their doorstep. "Look, Zach, she's home but-"

"Just a minute," Zach jumped on the idea, "I just need to talk to her for a few minutes and-"

"She's sleeping. We had a long shift with all the bomb activity and we stayed in to get some rest, she fell asleep while we were watching a movie-"

"I know what you've been going through, but I really need to talk to Stella. I said somethings today and I don't know if she told you but-"

"You broke up with her."

Zach paused mid-thought. "Yeah."

"So what else do you have to say to her?"

It took a moment for Zach to look at the room beyond Kelly's shoulder and then back at the Lieutenant. "Maybe I'll just wait and call her tomorrow."

The idea tasted like vinegar on his tongue. "So you're taking it back?"

Zach paused again and then started talking. "Are you… I guess I need to ask… are you… never mind." Zach shook his head. "I shouldn't have come. Look, don't tell Stella I stopped by, okay?"

Kelly couldn't help the sigh of relief that left his lips.

Zach took a few steps away and then looked back over his shoulder. "You do see it, right?"

Narrowing his gaze at Zach, Kelly drew himself up to his full height and stared back. "See what?"

"Wow," Zach shook his head, "you really don't. That's just messed up."

"Look, Zach-"

"I don't know how you two got so messed up that both of you don't see what the other is thinking, but do yourself a favor, Severide. Open your eyes before it's too late."

Zach walked off down the hall, leaving Kelly watching after him until he opened the door to the stairway at the end of the hall.

Closing the door behind him, Kelly set he lock and went back to the couch.

While he'd been gone, Stella had stretched out and from head to toe she'd nearly taken up the whole couch all by herself.

"Great, you couch hog." Stella mumbled something in her sleep but didn't move.

Kelly wasn't ready to call it a night and he really didn't want to wake her up when she looked so comfortable. He probably should have left well enough alone, but the short conversation he'd had with Zach had his mind stirred up.

Crouching down, he sat his hip on the very edge of the couch and worked his hand between Stella's neck at the pillow, pulling out the pillow and sliding under her head a few seconds later.

A frown pressed a crease between her brows and Kelly held his breath, hoping she'd stay asleep. There really wasn't an explanation that he could think up for why he'd just settled Stella's head in his lap beyond temporary insanity.

And yet there he was, his fingers gentle brushing errant strands of her hair from her face, looking down at her lashes where they lay on her high-cheekbones.

Stella was a force of nature when she was awake, but asleep… she was achingly beautiful. And he felt it, right square in his chest.

She stirred and he held his breath. "Kelly," he waited for her eyes to open, but she just sighed, her voice slow and dreamy, "I'm cold."

God, what wouldn't he do for this woman?

Reaching back over the seatback, he tugged down the blanket and draped it over her, pulling it up to her shoulder he watched her tuck her knees up toward her chest and cuddle under the blanket, reaching her hand up, she wrapped it around the loose fabric of his shirt and held on.

"Stella?" He was fairly sure she was dead asleep and unaware of what she was doing, but it didn't make it any easier for him. Not when his mind kept straying back to what Zach had told him… 'do yourself a favor, Severide. Open your eyes before it's too late.'

Closing his own eyes on a long sigh, Kelly waited for the dread to start in his chest. It was too soon, he'd told himself for a long time, it was too much to care. It left him too vulnerable to the kind of emptiness that he never wanted to face again.

He wasn't ready.

He didn't want to be ready.

He wasn't going to let himself feel like that again.

She shifted and her cheek rubbed against his thigh, her hand tightening around his shirt. Before he could stop himself, he lifted his hand and brushed his knuckles over her cheek.

"Just when I think I know where the ground is, Stella, here you are, shaking me up."