"Stone said there was some screwup with the scheduling," Casey told Severide the next day. "The preliminary hearing's going to be the last item of the day, and he thinks it's going to take two days to present everything to the judge."

"This is an open and shut case," Severide said, "what's taking so long?"

"Our testimonies among other things," Casey said, "he's going to put me on the stand first, and that's going to take up most of the first day, then he wants you to come in the next day and testify to what you saw."

"I'll be there when you testify," Kelly told him.

"That's not necessary."

"Casey, I'm gonna be there," Severide insisted.

Casey looked at him for a few seconds, then finally responded, "I appreciate it. Just don't tell the guys when it is, I don't want them all showing up for it."

"Well it's going to be a little awkward when I tell Chief we need to cut out early so he can prep our testimony," Kelly replied.

"If they really have my back, they should understand."

"Casey..."

"Kelly," Matt turned to him and looked like what he was going to say was physically hurting him, but he pressed on, "If Katie had stayed in Chicago and taken the bastard that violated her to trial...would you want everybody from 51 in there listening to what happened to her?"

Severide slowly nodded, "You're right, I'm sorry."

Casey sighed and told him, "So am I. None of this should be happening." He turned around and kicked the coffee table clear across the room and it came within an inch of going through the TV screen.

"Matt."

Casey growled under his breath and turned around and beat the wall with his fists and some of the drywall fell out.

"Matt!" Severide went over to him.

"None of this should've happened, why the hell did this guy target me?" Casey wanted to know.

"I don't know," Severide said. "I don't know."

Casey let out an animalistic yell and hit the wall again with both fists but not enough to knock out anymore plaster. Then he pressed his forehead against the wall and slowly sunk down into a crouching position and Severide could hear his muffled cries. He knelt down beside Matt and gently pressed a hand against his back.

"It's gonna be alright," he told Casey, "I promise."

Casey cupped his hands over his face, which further distorted his words as he tried to speak, but Severide could still plainly hear him say, "I wish it was all over."

Kelly rubbed his back and told him, "I know, buddy, I know.'


"Can I ask you a question?" Matt asked Kelly the next day.

"What's that?"

"You go to this woman...Rhonda...what do you talk to her about?"

Kelly shrugged his shoulders, "Anything you want."

"But I mean how does this therapy of hers work?"

"You just talk to her, doesn't matter about what really. She won't pry, she's not invasive."

"So...if I wanted to leave out this whole mess?"

"Wouldn't matter to her," Kelly answered. "She's pretty easy to talk to about just about anything. You want to talk to her about construction work, she probably has some opinion on it. You want to talk to her about the Blackhawks, she knows it. Feel free to talk to her about the job, she definitely gets that, don't have to take time explaining all the terminology to her."

"Hmm." Casey looked at him and asked, "What do you talk to her about? If you don't mind my asking."

"...About Shay," Kelly answered.

Casey slowly nodded and said, "Kind of figured."

"About Jones."

"Yeah."

"About breaking my neck, the operation."

"Mm," Casey nodded again.

"Benny...Hadley...Andy...my mom...Katie...Anything you feel like opening up about, it's all fair game," Severide told him. "Look, I told you she's not like a psychiatrist. Anything you tell her, it's all off the record, Cardoza's lawyer could never use any of it in court, I promise."


"It's good to see you again, Matt," Rhonda said as she let Casey in her house. "To be honest I was surprised to see Kelly's not with you."

"Severide had to go pick up a new battery for his car," Casey told her. "Besides, I didn't really want him here to hear what I was going to say."

"Well you don't have to worry about that," she said as she led him to the living room, "Kelly and I have a mutual understanding, when I'm seeing other clients, he buzzes off."

Casey got out a short laugh at that and sat on the couch. He found himself staring at Rhonda again and he recovered from his shock and told her, "I'm sorry, it's just that you remind me so much of someone I used to know."

"Leslie Shay," Rhonda nodded, "I know, Kelly told me about her shortly after we met."

"How...did you meet Severide anyway?" Casey asked.

"In a bar, not one of my finest moments," she confessed, "I went in because my battery was dead, and I asked if anybody could give me a jump. He'd had a few and took that as a line, so he got fresh and then I slapped him. Then he went out to his car and jumped the battery anyway, so I thought, okay, maybe this guy's okay. So I had a couple drinks with him...then I slapped him again."

Matt raised an eyebrow in silent inquisition.

"He was fresher than I was accustomed to," Rhonda said. "Didn't stop me from jumping into bed with him, but that was after we got to know each other better."

"So what happened? I mean..."

She smiled at him and explained, "What's that saying, we were good lovers but better as friends...we wound up talking in bed more than anything. And that was even before he knew I was a psychiatrist."

"Can I ask why you went into this line of work?" Casey asked.

"You mean officially or..." she pointed, "my real work here?"

"Yeah."

"Did Kelly say something about if you wanted to discuss your job, the calls you go on?" Rhonda asked.

"Yeah...he said that you'd understand about it."

"Right, but not because of Kelly," Rhonda said. "My dad was a fireman."

"Oh."

"He didn't really care whether I wanted to follow in his footsteps when I grew up or not, but he'd be damned if he didn't teach me all he knew," Rhonda told him. "It was a lot worse for firemen in his day because they didn't have the technology or experience they have today, so a lot more mistakes were made and it was a lot harder to get people out of fires, get the fires put out, and not die in the fires themselves."

Casey nodded in understanding.

"He was on a lot of calls where by the time they got there it was already too late, and in the secondary searches, there were several times he would be standing on the bodies and not know it until it was too late because the fire had scorched them down to a gnarled bit of nothing."

Casey closed his eyes and groaned in grim remembrance of similar events on calls he'd responded to over the years.

"And you know, back then it wasn't seen as acceptable for firefighters to get any kind of counseling for that stuff," Rhonda rolled her eyes, "supposed to just walk it off, shift after shift, year after year...apparently that stuff wasn't supposed to be traumatizing. So anyway, one day my dad is called into court to testify in an arson case, bastard on trial set fires and set traps that when the firemen came to save the people trapped inside, eight of their own got killed as well. They've got traps that survived the fire, they've got his fingerprints on them, they have eyewitnesses, but the defense tries to shred my dad's credibility by saying 'Mr. Lind, isn't it true that for the past six months you spend three days every week in a psychiatric ward in 24 hour watches?'"

Casey groaned, "That's brutal."

"Yeah, except my dad was ready for him. He told the shyster he was not a mental patient, he was not institutionalized, he was not on any medications, he was not receiving any psychiatric treatments. See he had a friend who was a doctor there, and he had this friend get him in when he got off shift, and he'd spend 24 hours in a padded cell."

"Why?" Casey asked.

"Well my dad told the lawyer 'It's my understanding that you are not a father, but let me tell you after I get off shift where I deal with burn victims, arsonists setting traps for us and protesting morons in the street trying to kill us when we go out on call by throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at us, the only way I can stay sane is to get total peace and quiet for 24 hours before going home to see my four screaming kids'. The jury busted up laughing. He said a rubber room was a comfortable enough place for him to just drop on the floor and sleep for most of the day...but I suspected he also went there because nobody would listen to him screaming or crying or throwing himself against the wall, that was his outlet for all the stress he had on the job. And before that mouthpiece could say anything else, my dad pointed out he was not taking services away from any patients who needed it since the rubber rooms were in an old part of the ward that hadn't even been used since it was renovated 20 years earlier, so no tax money was being fraudulently used in his turning the cell into his own bunk room 3 times a week."

"Interesting."

"The best help he could get was unofficial and highly unorthodox, so that's also why I do what I do with you, Kelly, and a few other choice clients," Rhonda told him. "It's all off the books, I keep no physical record of anything."

"So how do you remember everything?" Casey asked.

She pointed to her temple and answered, "I have near total perfect recall, I don't forget anything anybody says to me."

"I imagine that must make your sessions pretty short," Matt said.

"Not really, when doctors ask patients to go back over something, it's not because they can't remember, but to see how the patient responds. Like when you ask a concussion victim their name, you know their name but you want to see if they remember it."

"So...what do I talk about?" Casey asked.

Rhonda sat back against the cushions, "Anything you want."

Casey sheepishly ran his hand over his face and closed his eyes, "Severide told you about what happened to me, didn't he?"

"He said you might need my help."

"And if I don't want to talk about it?" he asked as he opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Then you don't have to," she said.

"Would you recommend it?" he asked.

"Everybody has to do what's right for them in their own time, there's no clock on it," she said, "although sometimes opening up sooner instead of later does have its benefits."

"And if you don't do it right away, then you're accused of lying," Casey said.

"Nobody ever accused the legal system of being understanding," Rhonda replied. "Or society for that matter."

Casey sucked in a long breath and huffed it back out. "I don't want to do this...I know the odds are stacked against me as soon as I walk into that courtroom, they've got all the physical evidence they need but this bastard might still walk."

"That is usually a risk," Rhonda said.

He looked at her and said, "Your dad was a fireman, and he taught you everything he knew, right?"

"Right."

"So maybe you can appreciate what I'm about to say." Casey leaned back, looked her dead in the eyes and told her in all sincerity, "I would rather run head-on into a 10 alarm fire on the 6th story of a building with no oxygen, no helmet, no turnout gear, and no ladder, than go through with this trial. Is that clear enough for you?"

"Crystal," Rhonda replied. "And the reason why it scares you so much is precisely why this is so important."

Casey shook his head. "I still don't want to do it."

"Is anybody from 51 going to be with you during the trial?" she asked.

"Severide's coming with me to the hearing, only half of the reason is his own testimony."

"Anyone else?"

Casey shook his head. "I don't want them to."

"Because of what they'd hear from the lawyers."

He nodded.

"And you didn't want them to find out what had happened to you at all, right?"

"Pretty much."

"But they did?"

"Typical screwup of the CPD. The cop who came to 51 couldn't keep his mouth shut," Casey bitterly responded.

Rhonda merely nodded. "And that was the worst thing that could possibly happen, after the attack, right? Everybody finding out."

"Yep," Casey closed his eyes and nodded sharply.

"And what did happen when they found out?" she asked.

Casey kept his head down and took in a few ragged breaths.

"Nothing...absolutely nothing," he admitted as he looked at her.

"But you were afraid of what might happen when they found out."

"Not looking forward to it is a better choice of words."

"But Kelly knew what happened...he was there, wasn't he?"

Casey sucked in a pained breath and looked to the floor again. "He stopped it."

She nodded. "But you didn't worry about Kelly knowing, did you?" Casey seemed to be trying to bury his gaze even further to the floor, she pressed on. "You weren't worried about what he would think, were you?"

Slowly, Casey raised his head, looked at her, and shook his head.

"Because he was actually there, and he saw what happened, so he knew that it wasn't your fault," Rhonda said. "Isn't that correct?"

Casey raised his hands to his face and tried to shut everything out, but to no avail.

"He knew there wasn't anything you could've done to stop it, you knew he couldn't blame you for what happened," Rhonda told him. "The others weren't there, they didn't see what Kelly saw, so in their minds there might be room for doubt, the typical questions, 'how could you let it happen', 'why didn't you try to stop it?', right?"

Casey slowly exhaled, lowered his hands and nodded in response.

"Do you still think they wonder that?" she asked.

He shook his head again and looked down once more.

"Nothing really changed once they knew, did it?"

He just shook his head again.

"Do they talk about it with you?"

"No...the few times it actually has come up...they don't actually talk about what happened...but they just talk about it like it's any other problem that will pass, that we'll figure out, that they are all behind me on."

"So their finding out actually became a large source of support for you, didn't it?" she asked.

That drew a small smile from the lieutenant. But it didn't last. "It's easy now because they only know what the cop told them...but in court..."

"And you know about being in court, don't you?"

Casey nodded. "It was bad enough when it was my mom...now I'm going to be on trial, everything is going to come back on me, nobody's going to focus on Cardoza...everybody's going to be looking at me and wondering what's wrong with me? How could I allow it to happen? Am I even telling the truth?"

"And the first round of that will be the preliminary hearing."

Casey nodded.

"And Kelly's going to be there?"

"He plans on it."

She nodded. "And how would you describe you two's relationship since this whole thing happened?"

"What relationship?"

"You two are friends, right?"

"Yeah...I'm amazed we still are after everything that's happened."

"You didn't think he would abandon you because of what happened, did you?"

"No...not because of that, but maybe because of what I did...I know I've made his life hell these past few weeks, and all he does is stick around and still try to help, I don't get it."

"Would you do the same for him if the roles were reversed?" she asked.

"Probably. I don't know what scares me more, the fact he's barely let me out of his sight since this happened...or the fact that it hardly bothers me. It's like...I'm...almost like I'm..."

"Scared?"

"Your words," Casey told her, but added to it, "of him not being around, when we're not on shift. Which is stupid, it's never been like this before."

"You invited him to move in with you?" Rhonda asked.

"Yeah, we go to work, we're on the same shift, we see each other when we get home at night, and when we leave in the morning, and that's usually it, we have completely separate lives...or did. Severide generally spends his nights off shift at every bar in driving distance...that night, he came home instead. I don't get it. And he hasn't gone out at night since..."

"Why do you think that is?" she asked him.

"I don't know. It is not like Kelly Severide to stay at home at night instead of going to the bars and going home with everything that moves. No offense."

"Do you think he's worried the man who attacked you will come back?" Rhonda asked.

"That doesn't seem likely."

"But do you think that's why?"

"I don't know...maybe..."

"Or maybe because he's worried about you?"

He looked up at her with wide eyes and a sheepish expression on his face. "That could be...there have definitely been some bad nights in the past three weeks..." he turned a shade paler as he added, "I don't know how I would've gotten through it all if he hadn't been there." He returned to his original question, "What if it's all for nothing and this guy walks? What's Severide going to do, hover over me for the rest of my life? We'll kill each other long before that." He sighed and slapped his hands against the sides of his head. "I want my life back to the way it was before all this happened."


"This is a bit unusual, Kelly," Peter Stone said when Severide met him at the restaurant where he was having dinner. "I thought both of you would be coming in."

"Casey's...indisposed right now," Kelly said, "I just wanted to get something clear. This is an open and shut case as far as the evidence goes, right? I mean we've got the guy's DNA, we have Casey's blood, what more do you need for this to be a slam dunk?"

"Unfortunately, much actually," Stone told him. "Even if we had all the physical evidence possible, casting doubt on Casey's credibility is still the easiest way to sway the jury in the world."

"What more physical evidence do you need?" Kelly asked. "You've got Casey's blood, this guy's semen, Casey's skin cells on the knife..."

"Pictures of his injuries would've actually helped tremendously," Peter said. "Casey's going to walk into the courtroom without a mark on him, the police didn't see him, they can't testify to his appearance or his state, doctors didn't treat him for anything, the SANE nurse never saw him, her testimony would've actually been a particularly big help because she does this all the time. We have Casey's clothes...which prove that he and Cardoza had a rough sexual encounter but rough doesn't automatically equal rape. And as to the knife, they are a part of some people's sexual activities. The defense can argue that drawing blood during sex heightens certain people's arousal. He doesn't even have a scar, the mark on his neck was superficial at best."

"It was intimidation," Kelly corrected him. "Don't move or I'll kill you, when somebody tells you that, and they have a knife at your throat, you don't move."

"I realize that, but a lot of it is just secondhand circumstantial at best. You can't even testify how the attack started, you walked into the middle of it, for all you know..."

"Don't start with me, Stone," Kelly warned him, "I know what I saw, Casey was scared to death."

"Of Cardoza, or of you walking in on him with his clothes all but torn off and another man on top of him? Maybe what you saw wasn't really fear but just shame and mortification at being caught having sex with a man. With no crime scene photos or doctor's report to verify anything, it'll be only his word that he got his head bashed in and was bloodied up."

"And my word."

"And who are you? His best friend, who would say anything you had to to help him out. An unbiased witness who had no personal stake in it would strike more points with the jury. One of the best things we have going for us is what the forensics report didn't find."

"What do you mean?" Severide asked.

"Casey walked out of that hospital with most of the DNA still on him, but the report found even for what there was, there was evidence he had been assaulted several times that night."

"Oh my God," Kelly said, "Casey didn't tell me that."

"The one thing in our favor is that the only semen on his clothes was Cardoza's," Stone told him.

Kelly opened his mouth a couple of times to respond but he couldn't even think of how, he glared at the State's Attorney and asked, "What do you mean by that?"

"Part of the reason some rape victims don't come forward is they are able to experience arousal and even orgasm during their assault, which is always misconstrued by the defense as proof of consent. Cardoza clearly experienced several orgasms while he was raping Casey, but Casey never even..."

Kelly jumped up from his seat and just about grabbed Stone by the throat. Peter looked up at him, not even flinching. Kelly lowered his hands and sat back down.

"Your testimony is half of this case, Severide, if I'm actually going to put you on the stand, I need you to control your urge to strangle the defense," Stone told him.

"Is that why you're dragging this hearing out to two days?" Kelly asked.

"It wouldn't hurt to make sure you had another day to get your head on straight. You plan to be in the courtroom when Matt testifies?"

"Yes," Kelly answered in a 'well duh!' tone.

"You're already going to be riled up hearing him recall it, then the defense will tear every detail apart, I need you to come in with a cool head and not emotionally react to anything he does, just stick to the facts."

"I will," Kelly said as he got up, "I need to go. What time do you want us?"