Chapter 9

Shay woke to the sound of a loud metal object colliding with the metal bars on the stairs. What? She thought to herself, but then she heard Kelly say "Dammit!" and she knew that it was time to get out of bed.

When she walked into the hallway and saw that Kelly had gotten one of his crutches stuck in the stairs, Shay gasped. "Are you okay? And what are doing up here? I thought you were sleeping in the living room last night."

"I'm fine, just got one of my crutches stuck when I was trying to get down the stairs," Kelly said as Shay pulled the stuck one free. "Thanks," he continued, "And in response to your question about sleeping downstairs? I've been stuck in a hospital bed for over a week and it was really nice to sleep in my own bed for once."

"Fine," Shay conceded, helping Kelly the rest of the way down the stairs. After Shay got him situated on the couch, he started talking about how he was getting frustrated with the crutches, having his leg in a full splint, and that his ribs hurt.

"The rib pain is to be expected. You did break three after all," Shay responded, handing him a glass of water and his three pills that he had to take in the morning.

"Which ones do what?" he asked, knowing that as a paramedic, Shay would have an answer.

Shay replied, "The white circular one is so you don't get any potentially harmful infections, the blue one is the painkillers for your ribs, and the green one is for your femur. Now take them. Please."

"Shay, I'm not a baby, I can take care of myself," Severide spat back, frustrated.

"Says the same person who got one of his crutches stuck in the stairs?" Shay asked back, knowing that she had him beat.

"Sorry," he admitted, "I'm just frustrated, okay? I can't go to work, let alone get around the apartment or down the stairs by myself."

Shay, realizing that Severide probably wouldn't do too well by himself, picked her phone up off the counter and dialed Boden's number. Luckily, he picked up after a few rings. "Boden," he said into the speaker.

"Morning, Chief, it's Shay," she began, "Listen, I'm really sorry to do this on short notice but Kelly is having a tough morning so I'm going to take a personal day and keep an eye on him."

"Say no more, Shay. I appreciate that you're helping him out. In fact, Casey also took a personal day to look after Dawson."

"That's sweet," Shay commented, "Thank you Chief. I'll see you in two days!"

"See you then. Say hi to Kelly for me," Boden said, chuckling at the thought of a Kelly Severide confined to an apartment.

"I will. Bye, Chief," Shay replied, hanging up the phone. The end of her phone conversation caused Kelly to pipe up.

"You didn't have to do that, Shay, really."

"Yes, I did," Shay said, "Boden says hi. End of discussion. Now…what do you want for breakfast?"

Later that day, Gabby was checking on the lasagna that she had put in the oven 25 minutes earlier for dinner. Matt had gotten called to a last minute construction job in the afternoon, and after much convincing from Gabby that she would be fine, he went off to fix somebody's porch.

That had left Gabby on her own to make something for dinner when she got hungry.

It was hard to stand up for long periods of time with the huge number of stitches in her leg and it was even more difficult to cut with a broken wrist, so Gabby had managed to make due by cooking the pasta in a very light pan, using the pasta sauce in the pantry, and mixing in already-grated cheese. As she looked at the bubbling cheese on the top of the dish, she felt very proud of herself.

But now her leg was tired and her broken wrist was extremely sore, which technically wasn't supposed to happen. Oh well, she thought, had to start somewhere.

She wasn't quite sure how she was going to get it out of the oven (she had only just managed to drop it in), and she was in luck as Matt chose that moment to walk in the door. "Hey babe," he began, sniffing loudly, "Golly, that smells good. You didn't hurt yourself while cooking, did you?"

"No," Gabby said, smiling, "But it was harder than you might think and my "broken" wrist hurts. Can you get it out of the oven for me? I need to sit down."

"No problem," he replied, giving Gabby a quick kiss on his way in to the kitchen.

After Matt had served up the food, they had eaten, and Matt had cleaned all the dishes, he helped Gabby onto the couch and headed for the shower.

Ten minutes later, Gabby was scrolling through Facebook on her phone when she felt something weird in her bandaged leg.

And then pain.

"Ow," she said out loud as she slowly moved to a sitting up position, her healthy leg on the floor, her bandaged leg still on the couch. She carefully pulled away some of the bandaging and she saw blood and puss around the wound in her leg. No, she thought, beginning to panic.

"Matt!" she screamed.

Matt, who had just gotten out of the shower, ran into the living room with just boxers and a t-shirt on, asking, "What's wrong, baby?" along the way.

"My leg, it, it hurts and it doesn't look good at all. It looks infected, Matt," Gabby blurted out, tears coming to her eyes because of the pain.

Matt kept his composure and said, "I'm going to put some pants on, and then I'm driving you to the ER, okay?"

"Okay," Gabby spat. Less than two minutes later, Matt helped Gabby into the car, turned on the ignition, and sped down their street towards Lakeshore, praying that his girl would be okay.