Everybody was on the apparatus floor with a hearty welcome back for the two lieutenants as they entered 51 the next morning. Everybody commented on how good the two of them looked and how glad everybody was to have them back and hopefully things could get back to normal now. The bells went off very early into shift and it was a dead run from there. Truck and Squad were sent out on most of the same calls, and every so often Kelly would look over at Casey, and it seemed to him that the Truck lieutenant was holding everything together very well for his first day back. As the saying went, Casey adapted back to the routine of 51 like getting on a bike, to anybody that didn't know better, it was like he'd never been gone.

At night, things seemed to calm down for a while, everybody crashed in the bunk room to get some sleep before the bells went off again. Kelly waited until it was quiet, and left his quarters and crossed over to Casey's. The blinds were drawn but he put his ear to the door and listened. Faintly he could hear Casey's steady breathing and an occasional snore. Feeling like a weight had been taken off his shoulders, Kelly headed back to his own bunk for the night to get some rest.

But sleep didn't come easily. Kelly had thrown all his energy in the past 2 weeks into helping Casey recover from his attack, and while he'd done everything that came to his mind that could help his friend, it had also been a distraction from some of the thoughts that had been eating at him since he'd left Casey's apartment days earlier.

He'd felt guilty for leaving Casey. He'd thought by giving him some space he could process what had happened, he'd thought his presence was a hindrance for Casey's recovery. Apparently he'd been wrong but he hadn't known what to do. And when they came back, and he saw Casey trying to kill himself, he'd been racked with guilt over several other things.

"What was that?" Casey asked as he poked his head over the shower curtain.

"Some guy wants you to come out to his place tomorrow for a job," Kelly answered.

"He say what it was?"

"Something about putting on an extension, you do that?" Kelly asked.

"Preferably with more hands, yeah," Casey's head disappeared back under the curtain. "Get the address?"

"Uh...yeah. Here."

"Thanks."

"So you want some of us to go with you?" Kelly asked.

"I'm gonna check it out and see if I even want the job first," Casey told him. "If I take it, then I'll swing by Molly's tomorrow night and see who's interested in helping."

"Suit yourself."

Kelly should've insisted he'd go with Casey, whoever had attacked Casey expected him to come alone, if Kelly had gone with him, they wouldn't be in this mess.

"What can you tell me about the guy that attacked Casey?" Antonio asked.

"Not much," Kelly answered, "I think I talked to him."

"You think?"

"Some guy called Casey's phone asking about a construction job, I answered the phone."

"Would you recognize the voice if you heard it again?"

"I...don't know," Kelly shook his head helplessly.

Kelly had replayed the conversation he'd had with the man over in his mind a hundred times already, trying to place the voice, trying to remember if he'd heard it somewhere before. Trying to remember it well enough he could recognize it if he heard it again, but he always came up empty. If the cops had ever said they had someone and wanted to do a voice lineup, Kelly knew that he would fail. It felt like that was all he'd done, fail his best friend, which was part of why he'd tried so hard the last couple weeks to try and undo some of the damage, the damage that he had caused without realizing it.

No, sleep did not come easily to Kelly that night.

Casey had sneaked out to the kitchen to get a drink, then quietly made his way back towards his quarters without waking anyone. He knew it was late but he thought about stopping in Kelly's quarters to talk to him while he had the chance before another call came in. He opened the door and went over to the bunk, and saw it was empty. He looked around the room, Kelly wasn't there. Casey doubled back and checked the bathroom, Kelly wasn't there either. He checked the kitchen and the common room, nothing. It was getting harder not to panic but Casey knew it was a big station house. He didn't know why, but his next instinct was to check the apparatus floor. Maybe Kelly had gone out for a cigar break and hadn't wanted to bug him.

As Casey made his way past the trucks, he thought he heard something. He stopped, and held his breath, and listened, and he heard a muffled sound coming from the Squad rig. He backed up, pulled open the door and saw Kelly seated on the floor where they changed into their scuba gear. Even in the dark Casey saw the Squad lieutenant tucked in a ball, softly crying, and Casey felt like the rug had just been pulled out from under him.

"Kelly, what's wrong?"

The Squad lieutenant ran the back of his hand under his nose and sniffed as he answered, not even able to look at Casey, "I should've gone with you on that job, then none of this would've happened."

Casey had no idea what he was talking about. "What do you mean?"

"I talked to the guy, Casey," Kelly looked up at him, "I told him it was a one-man crew, he knew you'd be alone, if I'd gone with you, he wouldn't have been able to do anything."

The words started to fall into place in Matt's head that he could realize what Kelly was saying, and he just about laughed even though there was nothing funny about it.

"Kelly, what happened to me isn't your fault, I told you I didn't want anyone going with me."

"I shouldn't have listened, I should've gone anyway," Severide replied.

"Kelly," Casey stepped into the rig and knelt down beside him, "There's no way you could've known what was going to happen. This isn't on you."

"It feels like it is," Kelly told him.

"Oh Kelly..." Casey put his arms around his friend and pulled Kelly against him.

A choked sob broke loose as Kelly pressed his face into the crook of Casey's neck, Casey calmly rubbed his back with both hands and murmured soothing reassurances.

Three more calls came in before shift change, a four car pileup on the highway, a two story house fire, and it took both companies to get a 500 pound pregnant woman from the floor of her living room out to the ambulance to be rushed to Med. By the time Kelly and Casey got back to his apartment and basically fell in the front door, they were running on a combined total of maybe three hours' sleep.

"You want some coffee?" Casey croaked out as he fumbled to get his jacket off.

Kelly groaned and shook his head, "All I want to do is get a couple more hours' sleep."

"Sounds good," Casey agreed.

Kelly made it over to the couch and fell face down on the cushions, his eyes already closed, a prolonged moan escaping his lips.

"Kelly."

"Hmm?" he forced himself to roll over and opened his eyes to look at Casey.

Matt stood beside the couch and Kelly saw he was holding Hallie's teddy bear, which he then held out to Kelly and said simply, "Here."

Kelly got out an exhausted laugh as Casey tucked it into the crook of his arm. "Thanks."

Casey pulled the blanket off the top of the couch and draped it over Kelly, then turned and headed off to the bedroom.

Kelly had one eye half opened as he looked at the stuffed animal, he hadn't paid much attention at the time he dug it out of the closet, but as it brushed against his bare skin he noticed how soft it was, and that coupled with the memories that no doubt flooded Casey, it was no wonder he held onto it so much over the past couple weeks when he went to sleep. Kelly rolled onto his side and adjusted the blanket covering him, and with the teddy bear still tucked under his arm, it was amazing how naturally it seemed to fit there he noted, he closed his eyes and eventually fell asleep.

Kelly knocked on the door frame as he poked his head in Casey's room. It was 11 A.M., and though the sun had been out that morning when they left shift and looked like the beginning of a beautiful day, when he woke up it was dark out and it looked like it was going to start pouring any minute.

"Mind if I come in?" he asked the lump turned away from him in the bed.

Casey turned his head back enough to see Kelly and answered tiredly, "Sure."

Kelly walked over to the bed and saw Casey hadn't even pulled back the covers, just dug a quilt out of the closet and burrowed under it. Kelly lifted up the other end and crawled in beside him.

"You okay?" he asked the blonde man who still looked exhausted.

Casey merely nodded and replied, "You?"

Kelly just nodded.

"None of this was your fault, Kelly."

"I know, but it still feels like it is. I'm sorry that there wasn't anything else I could do."

"You've put up with me for two weeks and helped me get through the absolute worst time of my life," Casey responded as he turned over to face Severide. "I couldn't ask for more than that."

"It's still not enough," Kelly shook his head.

"You saved my life...that's enough. I can deal with the rest...I'm learning to deal with the rest."

Kelly didn't know what to say after that. They laid there for a couple minutes and through the open window he could hear the rain starting outside.

"You want to get lunch?" Kelly asked.

Casey shook his head, "Just wanna stay here for a while."

Kelly thought for a minute and decided, "Me too."

Kelly stood over the kitchen table peeling leaf lettuce off their stems then put them on a cutting board and chopped them into little pieces when he saw Casey stroll in to the room.

"Hey Casey, you want a chef salad for dinner?"

"Yeah, sure, fine," Casey said with no conviction as he pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.

"What's wrong?" Kelly asked as he put the knife down and straightened his back.

"Kelly."

"Huh?"

Casey looked at him and asked, "Has there been any update on the case?"

Kelly shook his head, "They're trying...but there are a lot of open cases with similar stuff but nothing real concrete."

"I need to talk to them again, don't I?"

"About what?"

"Anything else I can tell him...what this guy looks like...what, what he did...maybe then they can catch him...if I don't, he is going to do this to someone else, and they will die. I can't live with that on my conscience."

"You're not obligated to-"

"No, I'm not...but that's the whole point of being a firefighter, we don't just do what we're obligated to do, we do what we have to do and what we can do...and if I don't apply that same reasoning to this...then I'm a hypocrite."

"This isn't the same thing at all, Casey."

"We save lives...and if the cops can catch this bastard before he finds another victim, it is the same thing."

Kelly looked at him and didn't say anything for a minute. Finally he responded, "If that's what you want to do, okay."

Despite this, Casey grimaced as he realized, "Everybody in Intelligence knows about this."

Kelly brainstormed, and said, "I bet we could get Antonio to come over here and you could talk to him."

"I hope so...I know I have to do this, but I can't face all of them right now," Casey said.

Kelly reached over and patted Casey's shoulder, "It'll be alright. They know how hard this is for you, and Antonio will understand."

He just hoped that this actually worked.