"I've missed you," Matt said softly.
There was so much sincerity and sadness in his tone that Sylvie could instantly feel a lump building in her throat.
She finished the stitch she was putting in his shoulder blade and put down the needle.
Matt was seated on the bunk with his back to her. Shirtless and bleeding. He'd come back from the last call with a cut on his shoulder blade. A piece of rebar had gotten caught under his jacket and had ripped through his shirt leaving a long, but shallow cut in the middle of his left shoulder blade.
Not waiting to burden the team at Chicago Med for what felt like a minor cut, he'd asked Sylvie if she could stitch him up. She'd agreed hesitantly, "Uh… okay… I mean, of course."
As soon as he took off his shirt, she'd begun to regret her decision. She was in love with him. She didn't want to be, and she was working very hard to pretend that she wasn't. But she was. Matt hadn't been shirtless in front of her in a long time. Even with the smell of smoke in his hair and blood from the cut on his back, his physicality was distracting. His smooth, warm skin pulled tight over solid muscle. A few scars from his years on the job scattered across his back.
Determined to not to back out on something she'd said she would do, Sylvie had pulled everything she'd needed out of her kit. Cleaned the cut and the blood off his back. And started carefully stitching up the cut. Trying to ease the tension she felt, she'd started talking. Nervously at first, but it didn't take long before she was comfortably rambling away about a funny call she'd taken the day before and a prank Cruz had played on Gallo.
Then, he said it. "I've missed you."
Sylvie was still trying to figure out how to respond when he continued.
"I miss being friends. I know that you've moved on and I respect that. Grainger seems like a good guy. I wanted more, but I understand that's not possible. I just miss hanging out with you. Being someone you can turn to. You being someone I can turn to.
I know it doesn't matter anymore, but I have thought a lot about what you asked me about Gabby. Whether or not I'd leave with her if she came back right now. I'm sorry that I didn't have a better answer for you when you asked. The truth is that she has done exactly that. More than once, in fact. Come back to Chicago and asked me to join her. But, Chicago is my home. 51 is my home.
I thought Gabby and I were a fortress. That nothing could break us. That whenever anything happened, we'd turn to each other and we'd be okay," he paused.
"But… she didn't.
When we couldn't have a family, she didn't turn to me. She shut me out.
I wasn't enough for her. And, I guess I'm still trying to wrap my head around that," he said sadly.
"So, you're right not to want to be with me because of Gabby. Not because I'm still in love with her. Because I'm broken in ways that I don't know that I can ever fix. The faith that I had in love, in people, in the future… it isn't what it was," he took a long pause.
"You deserve more than that. Maybe you've found that in Grainger," he said with a note of hope in his voice, as he turned his head to look back at her with a small smile.
Before Sylvie could respond, Severide burst in through the open door of Matt's office. "Hey Casey! We just got a call from Firehouse 17, they need extra trucks on an industrial fire on the South side. You good to go? You need to sit this one out?"
Matt looked back at Sylvie. "I'll be good. I'm just about patched up. Right, Brett?"
Sylvie picked up her needle and looked up at them both. "Yep, just a couple more stitches and he's all yours."
"Severide – can you grab me a clean shirt?" Matt yelled after Kelly.
"Okay, you'll all done," Sylvie said to Matt as she started standing up. "Take it easy on this shoulder if you can."
"Thanks for this," Matt said standing up and grabbing the rest of his gear off the bunk. He started out of the room.
Still filled with emotion from everything he'd said, Sylvie grabbed his wrist. He stopped and turned around to look at her. It was the first time they'd made real eye contact since their fight about how Matt was treating Grainger weeks ago.
Sylvie searched his eyes, still not sure how to take in everything he'd said. His eyes looked so blue and were filled with so much vulnerability that Sylvie could feel her eyes start to well with tears.
Severide blew by the doorway. "Got your shirt. Casey – we gotta go," Kelly yelled.
"Yeah, right behind you." Matt gave Sylvie an uncertain smile and ran off down the hall after Severide.