All Men Are Afraid in Battle-
The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty
~ George S. Patton
A/N: Okay folks, here comes the last chapter. Thank you all for reading. Those of you who found time to leave me your thoughts on the story – I send fierce, heartfelt virtual *HUGS*. I may write for myself, but sharing it on the internet means I want to... share, you know... And sharing means knowing what you, the readers think. It's very important to me and I really appreciate each and every comment. You made this journey worthwhile.
I hope you enjoy what's left of the story.
Chapter Twenty Five
Eleutheria
She tried, she really, really tried.
But Gabriela Dawson was never a very patient person and more often than not she blew up her frustrations on poor, undeserving Kelly Severide.
He took too long bringing her sandwich. He brought her tea that was too hot or coffee that was too cold. Or had no caffeine in it, that was a constant gripe.
"You can't have caffeine, you're pregnant," he'd tell her with unyielding patience and she would curse him and tell him he had no compassion at all.
He would laugh it off in a good spirited manner. And she would apologize profusely later, often shedding lots of tears. He understood. He would say that when one goes through hell and back, small glitches do nothing.
"Where's my juice?" she yelled one morning, having forgotten yesterday's apology session, because how much trouble was it to pour some fluid from a box, seriously? "Kellyyyy!"
He came in, his hands empty and she was about to rebuke him again, when she saw his face. Half terrified, half disbelieving, with a small glint of... was it happiness? ... in his eyes.
"What?" she mouthed.
"Give me your hand." He requested under his breath and sat on the edge of the bed next to her. Took her palm and guided it to his scalp. "Feel?"
She felt. A small itching under her fingertips, so delicate it was almost imperceptible.
"Do they grow back?"
"They do," Gabby confirmed, "they grow back!" She laughed. And then they hugged and laughed some more and Gabby forgot all about her orange juice, she was so happy, because her friend was getting better and he'd fought a horrible war, but he won, he beat up the enemy and he was finally fine. He was really, really fine.
Kelly was fine. Now all he had to do was get back to his previous physical form.
He wanted to get back to work, no matter how impossible it seemed. He would still get winded when he was climbing the stairs with a heavy bag of groceries. He was still exhausted after a full day of chores. His blood work just didn't want to return to normal, and it seemed like borderline anemia might be his permanent state for a while, if not for good. One day of bad weather and forgotten scarf resulted in three days in bed with temperature so high Gabby wanted to call an ambulance. April came instead, applied antibiotics and told them to wait. And wait again. And then the temperature dropped but he was weak like a newborn baby for six days after.
Katie had to come and do the groceries then, and dinner for both Kelly and Gabby and laundry and she was an angel. She officially moved in with Otis. Kelly wasn't sure if he was okay with that.
Kelly's hair grew back, but they were completely white now. He thought about dying them black, but Gabby said he would look silly with white roots after a couple weeks, so he just figured he'd be fashionable this way.
Only Matt felt odd in this arrangement, because suddenly Gabby and Kelly shared jokes that did not include him, Kelly knew better what Gabby needed and when, and Gabby only talked about "Kelly this and Kelly that."
"Don't worry, I'll move out as soon as your babygirl is born," Kelly assured him one evening when he noticed Matt's barely concealed jealousy. "I know it's all weird and everything, but we make it work, it's better for everybody and you can trust me."
"I know I can. And I do. I just... I don't know why I acted this way, I shouldn't have."
"You can redeem yourself."
"Yeah? How?"
Kelly hesitated. He had been thinking about it for a while now but thought it would take a bit more courage to just place that request. Now, as the opportunity presented itself, his heart started beating faster. What did he have to lose?
"Come with me to the Academy next week. I want to try my luck at obstacle course."
Of course Matt reacted exactly the way Kelly feared he would. "Are you out of your mind?" he exclaimed.
"Yeah," Kelly sighed. "I may be a little bit out of my mind. But I don't want to take it later and fail in front of everybody. I want only you to witness my first attempt, okay? I'll talk to Chief Tiberg and I'm sure he'll let us sneak in after hours one evening."
"What about medical clearance, do you even have a chance to get it?" Matt was faltering.
"My blood work is improving. I'm actually within the norm already. On the low side, but some parameters are within the norm. Come on, it's almost been two months!"
"Why don't you wait another month?" Matt said, but it was already obvious he would help. He just wanted to keep up appearances.
"I will wait at least another month," Kelly smirked. "With the actual attempt at physical. But I want to see how far off I am now."
"Okay," Matt sighed. "Give Tiberg a call and if he greenlights it – we'll do it."
It had been exactly ten weeks since Kelly's last chemotherapy when he and Casey stood on the training field of the Firefighter Academy, Kelly in full gear and Casey holding a timer.
"You set?"
"Yeah!" Kelly grunted.
"Go!"
The first exercise on the course was attaching the hose to the hydrant and securing the water flow. Easy, but in the heavy firefighter gear it took some effort. Half a year ago all this stuff, the pants, jacket, oxygen bottles, it felt, maybe not like a second skin, because it was way too heavy, but Kelly was more or less comfortable in it. Now he begun to sweat as he picked up the hose and started to run up the stairs. Four flights, half-way through third he was so winded he had to slow down. Then the smoke chamber. His hands were shaking when he put on the mask and he briefly considered quitting. Perhaps this was all too early.
He should have quit.
There was no smoke in there, he wasn't doing the course for real, and yet, inside the chamber Kelly felt disoriented. It often happened to the recruits who lacked experience, didn't know how to regulate the oxygen flow. For Kelly that was not a problem, it was instinct. He knew the route too, he helped design it. All the traps and pitfalls and obstacles held no secrets before an experienced firefighter.
And yet, he got lost. The oxygen bottle wedged itself between some rods and Kelly Severide got stuck. He felt panic creep on him and he tried to reason with it. There was no real danger, it was just a trial. He knew his way out of it, he had all the tools he needed – experience, knowledge... and here's where panic took over, because he lacked the last component – he lacked strength. And knowledge and experience told him that without it, if it was a real thing, he wouldn't have gotten out of it alive.
Kelly banged on the metal wall of the chamber, then banged again and again and again, until he felt hands on him, someone taking off his mask, unhooking the oxygen bottle keeping him in place.
"Easy, easy now," a voice spoke. "Breathe."
Casey.
"Fuck..." Kelly breathed out.
"I know. Kelly, you're fine. You did fine."
"Fuck you..."
"All things considered."
"Fuck you with a stick."
Casey shut up. They sat for a moment, glaring at each other. Then Casey shrugged.
"Come on, man. Give yourself more time. Half a year, a year maybe."
"No."
"Kelly."
"No." Kelly made up his mind. He knew what this trial was supposed to serve and he got just the answer he needed. "There's no point waiting a year on something that may never happen. On something that will most likely not happen. I knew it coming in, you know. That's why I wanted to take it with just you. If I'd finish it, I'd give myself a couple more months and try it for real, hoping that I might finish it in time to qualify. But I didn't even finish. Frankly, I expected such outcome on some subconscious level. And I know what it means. I'm calling Duffy tomorrow and I'll take Gabby's position at Arson. She doesn't want to go back there anyway."
"True," Matt laughed. "She'd rather go back on Ambo."
"Yeah. So. It's pretty obvious. And, Matt, really, I'm okay with this. I'm alive. I may not be a firefighter, but I am a fighter and I have a certificate of that."
"You sure do, buddy, you sure do."
"I'm done! Okay? I'm done with both of you!" Gabby was in one of her bad moods again and Kelly knew better than to argue.
Sylvie didn't.
"You shouldn't be up again," she chastised.
Kelly eavesdropped from the kitchen and he could just imagine Gabby's glare.
She took a moment, then seethed, "I am allowed to take a pee if I need to!"
"But you've just been to the toilet, like fifteen minutes ago."
"So now you're counting? This damn sack of uterus is pressing on my bladder. I have to pee often. Or do you want a more graphic description?"
Gabby shuffled out of the room. One look from her and a finger raised up had him lift both his hands in surrender. He wouldn't say a word, pinkie promise. Instead, he peeked into the room. Sylvie sat on the edge of the armchair, palms laced between her knees, head bowed. When she heard him, she looked up, lips set, eyes clouded.
Kelly pushed the door closed and came to sit opposite from her, on the bed.
"Let her make her own decisions. She's an adult and she hears enough of that from her doctors."
"How do you handle this? And the way she talked to you earlier... Is she always like that?"
"She apologizes five times a day now. Look, I get it. It's Gabby, she's one of the most active people I know. This bed-rest thing is really hard on her."
"Still, basic human decency..."
"We're long past that." He chuckled. "And believe me, she had done the same for me and more. It's no big deal and I'm actually glad that I can repay some of that debt."
Sylvie sighed.
"Yeah. I heard you're not coming back to the House?" she changed the subject.
Kelly nodded. He searched his heart for sadness and regret and didn't really find any. "Nope, I'm not coming back." He looked up at Sylvie with a smile that surprised even him. "It has been decided. I could maybe wait a few months, try to get medical clearance, pass the physical. Maybe. Maybe I wouldn't even get medical. There's no point planning, hoping. Look, a few years back I thought firefighting was all I ever wanted to do. Now... I guess I want to figure out myself again. Find another purpose. It's actually... Liberating, in a way, you know."
"It sounds... almost poetic."
"Don't laugh."
"Am I laughing? I'm smiling. I'm... I'm happy for you Kelly." She touched his palm, then took her hand away, awkwardly.
Before Kelly had a chance to figure out what that meant, they heard a scream from the bathroom. Gabby was crying a very frightened, desperate, "No! No-no-no-no-no..."
Sylvie was in the bathroom first. "What is it? What happened?" she breathed out, rooted in the doorway, gaping at Gabby's bare legs and a liquid mixed with blood dripping down the inside of her thighs.
"It's..." Gabby sobbed. "It's not... It is..."
"Sylvie." Kelly grabbed one of Sylvie's arms and gently pushed her out of the way. She glared up at him, completely frozen, but he didn't have time for her. "Gabby, you need to lay down. Are you sure this is your waters?"
Gabby nodded furiously, as she slid down to a vertical position. "And I think I'm having contractions. I thought I wanted to pee, but it was really that, you know? All day today, since the morning. I was having contractions, only I didn't know what it was."
"Maybe not, maybe you're wrong. Easy, easy now. Sylvie," Kelly turned to the paramedic they had on hand. "What should we do? What do we do in a situation like this?"
But Sylvie shook her head."I'll call an ambulance, Kelly."
Paramedics came quick and only after they left with Gabby, Kelly searched for Sylvie. He found her in the kitchen, staring at the counter.
"What happened?" He asked. He wasn't angry exactly, but she should have done something, instead she just chickened out of it. Alright, he was angry.
"I'm sorry." She looked up at him but there wasn't any guilt or regret in her eyes. Only sadness.
"I don't understand," he told her. " I mean..." He tried to not sound accusing, but the words just came rushing out. "Come on, you've been in a thousand critical situations, you know what to do, you never lose your cool. Why did you lose it now?"
"I didn't lose my cool, Kelly," Sylvie replied simply. "I just can't be a paramedic for the people I care about. Some people can; not me. I can't turn off those emotions." He looked at her and thought that maybe he was wrong. Maybe he couldn't demand of her things that were too difficult to handle. "Friend, I can be," Sylvie added after a minute of silence. "In fact," she waved the phone she held in her hand, "I just left a message for Matt. Tried calling him but it goes straight to voicemail. And we should probably go to be there with Gabby. We are her friends and she's going to need us there, as friends."
"Yes, but..." Kelly started and hesitated. No. She was right, saving people required a certain level of detatchment and when it was someone important to you, being detached felt odd. It was actually a very human thing, that she still let herself care so much, that she coulnd't access this unfeeling part of her brain.
Sylvie neared him and looked up, uncertain if she should speak up. She decided to give him a full disclosure.
"I realized that about myself with you, actually," she whispered and patted his arm as she passed by him to head for the door. "Let's go to Gabbby."
He followed her without another word and without any more resentment.
The twenty three minutes it took Matt to get to the hospital, since the moment he received Sylvie's message –which was already a couple hours after it was sent – were the longest in his life. He's been through a lot of bad things, he'd been injured, uncertain about his own future, his own life. He'd lost a woman he loved, he'd lost his father and had his mother bear the punishment. He'd helped his best friend battle for his life.
But this. Knowing that his child might be at risk, that she might die too... It was the worst.
It was too early, it was only thirty third week. She was too small, too fragile to come to this world. When he came into the hospital, the smallest baby he'd ever seen was already in the incubator. Gabby sat next to the transparent cube containing their daughter, her finger stroking the smallest fist. She appeared exhausted and distraught.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
"For what?"
"If I stayed in bed more. If I recognized those contractions for what they were..."
"Gabby." Matt wrapped his arm around her. "Gabby, stop. It's not your fault, it's biology. Sometimes those things happen. Please, stop." He hugged her and she cried silently for a while.
"She's not thin for her age," Gabby said finally, after a few minutes, wiping her face. He handed her a tissue. "The doctors say she may still be alright, you know. Many children are born prematurely and most of them grow up just fine, especially if they have good weight. They catch up with their peers within a year. She may be alright."
"I'm sure she will be. She's your daughter and I don't think I met a more stubborn, a more fierce fighter than you are."
"Or maybe it's because I didn't want her at first..."
"Gabby, please..."
"I know. I know, I'm sorry. Positive thoughts, I will think positive thoughts."
Matt held her again, even tighter. "Gabriela Dawson, will you finally marry me?"
t.b.c.
Yeah, okay, I kind of lied. It was the last chapter but... I still have an epilogue. :)