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Kelly stood up when Stella came around the corner of her bank of the lockers. He wiped the palms of his hands off on his thighs and gave her a tentative smile. "I brought your bag in. Thought if we had some time during shift, maybe we could talk?"
Stella swallowed. "I appreciate you bringing my bag in. That's really nice of you."
He felt his skin go cold at the look in her eyes. She ached and he read it written plainly as if he was looking in a mirror, and maybe he was.
"Stella, I made a mistake-"
She started, pulling back as if she was slapped, making him rush on.
"Saying what I did to Zach."
She sagged with relief, leaning up against the locker at her side. "You told him-"
"I was wrong, Stell. I felt like I didn't want him to get in the middle-"
"In the middle of what, Kelly?"
"Didn't he call things off?"
She leaned back from him. "What? What does that have to do with it?"
"You said he broke up with you and then he showed up, hugging you, hovering-"
"He heard about the shooting, heard that I was involved so he wanted to make sure I was… Kelly, what does this have to do with-"
Truck 81 – Ambo 61 – Kitchen Fire at…
Stella turned on her heel and headed for the Turnout Room, her head shaking with frustration.
Kelly sighed and sat back down next to Stella's bag.
Capp turned the corner, pointing his thumb back down the hall. "Something wrong with Stella?"
Kelly looked up at his friend. "What?"
"I passed her in the hallway, she… she…"
"What, Capp?"
"She didn't look right, Lieutenant. Is she upset about something?"
"Yeah," Kelly shook his head, "I guess so."
Capp narrowed his eyes at Kelly. "Something you did?"
Kelly blew out a breath. "Yeah, you could say that."
It was silent for a long moment and finally Kelly looked back at Capp. What he saw there from the normally affable man was a hard, disapproving look.
"Whatever you did," Capp's meaning came across in his tone too, "fix it. You shouldn't send her out like that."
Kelly knew the concern, it was always there in the back of his head.
"I would've thought after that house fire where Otis was injured, that you'd gotten your head firmly extracted from your ass."
"You done telling me what to do, Capp?"
Capp folded his arms over his chest. "Not if you're going to keep doing this kind of stupid stuff when it comes to Stella."
"Look, Capp-"
"No," he took a step forward and got in Kelly's face, "you look, Lieutenant, Stella may be assigned on Truck, but she's one of us, just like Dawson or Brett-"
"Any reason you're just bringing up the women at 51?"
"If you'd let me finish, Lieutenant, I would have named a lot more than the ladies, but right now that's beyond the point. Every time we get called out, we know there's a real chance we won't come back."
Kelly pushed back in his face. "Don't you think I know that?"
"Then act like it, Severide! I've seen you with women, the whole damn parade over the years. You've made some crazy stupid decisions, but Stella… damn it. If you don't know that a man only gets so lucky maybe once in a lifetime… some of us are barely holding onto the possibility."
"Capp-"
The other man put his hand on Kelly's chest and shoved him back. "Listen up. If you mess this up I'll quit. I'm not going to witness you making her miserable… and by extension the rest of us."
Kelly settled a little. "You don't think I feel that too?"
"Well hell, Lieutenant, there aren't many of us that know 'how' you feel… cause you don't say a damn thing." Reaching behind him Capp produced an envelope and held it out to Kelly. "Here."
Kelly looked down at the plain white No. 10 envelope and saw his name written on it in Stella's handwriting.
Reaching out, Kelly took it from Capp's hand. "What's this?" He swallowed hard.
Capp nodded. "I think you know."
Kelly stared at the envelope and shook his head. "How did you-"
"Contrary to popular belief, I can be a pretty resourceful guy, Lieutenant." There was a pause. "That, and Connie thinks you're acting like a Grade A asshole too."
Kelly looked back up at him. "Really?"
"Pretty much everyone here with eyes in their head thinks so." He nodded at the letter. "So, you going to read it?"
"I'm not going to tempt fate, Capp." He handed it back to Capp. "Go ahead and have Connie put it back."
Capp gave him a hard look. "You're going to fix this?"
Kelly nodded. "Yeah, I'm going to fix this."
"You better, or you're going answer to Squad 3." Capp gave him one last look. "Got it?"
"I got it." Kelly knew he had to step it up. He'd let things go too far.
