Nothing spreads faster than firehouse gossip, especially when The Sun Times got involved. By next shift Casey was the talk of the firehouse, the big hero, everybody had heard about what he'd done and everybody was making a big deal about it, even though Matt just wanted to forget the whole thing.

"I don't like this," he told Kelly as they changed into their station gear, "you were there, you tackled the guy, nobody's making a big deal about you."

"Yeah, because I'm not the one who had a gun in my face and jumped the guy anyway," Kelly replied, "I can't believe you did that."

"Neither can I," Matt confessed.

Kelly smirked and said jokingly, "that's why you're the captain."

"Oh stop," Casey grunted, and added, "I just want everyone to forget about it, it's old news, it's over."

"You stared down a lunatic and the barrel of his gun, and you won, that's nothing to sneeze at," Kelly told him. "You should be proud."

"Of what? All the time we're called heroes, and what do we say? It's just doing our job."

"Yeah, but this was not that," Kelly pointed out, "This wasn't a house fire or a car crash, we were off shift, we should've been way off shift when it happened."

"If we were, we wouldn't have even been there," Casey told him. "And none of it would've happened, and who knows what would've happened to those people?"

"Yeah, but you were in the right place at the right time, and you did the...incredibly stupid and amazing thing and grabbed the gun, I couldn't believe it," Kelly said.

They'd just finished changing when the bells went off, a house fire.

"No rest for the wicked," Casey commented as they ran to join the others and suit up and head out.

51 was unrolling their lines as Squad and Truck geared up to go in and search for people trapped in the fire. Everybody had a job to do and they did it. Casey had found a woman half conscious on the living room floor and brought her out towards the paramedics so they could start working on her. He'd gotten halfway from the Ambo to Truck when a sudden noise got his attention. He turned and saw a flashy red sports car run through the barricade, nearly clipping two of the guys on Engine in the process, and saw one of the lines get caught and pulled under the car. The line jerked loose and swung back at full force and Casey saw it and the nozzle attached coming right at him.

He felt the sensation of something hitting him in the head. He felt no actual pain, just a dizzying, deafening ringing sensation and the next thing he knew he was on his back, technically on his air bottle which was sharply digging into his back despite the turnout gear, staring up at the sky.

"Casey?"

That was Severide's voice, he couldn't see Severide right away but he could hear him, he sounded close and he sounded worried. Good, that at least made two of them. Casey's whole face felt strange, and he was too scared to think what it meant.

Suddenly he saw Severide hovering over him, ripping his mask off to see him.

"Casey? Are you alright?"

Every worst case scenario of being hit with the nozzle was flashing through Casey's mind and he couldn't even tell if he was feeling any pain or not, his breathing was hard and heavy as full blown panic settled into his body as he realized his whole body felt like a lead weight.

"I don't know," he gasped, "I don't know if I can move."

He looked to Kelly's face for any clues how bad it was, he could still talk so the nozzle hadn't hit him directly in the face, so, no broken teeth, no broken bones in the face, good, but what about the rest of it? Had it hit him where he'd already had his skull fractured years ago? Kelly looked scared out of his mind but nothing specific that Casey could read off his expression. He carefully reached for Casey and told him, "Okay, hang on, we're gonna take a look, just hold steady, keep breathing..."

Casey got a lot closer to hyperventilating as he actually felt his helmet being removed, and his hood, and his mask, he watched Kelly for any signs how bad the damage was. Kelly moved cautiously and hesitantly, and the looks on his face told Casey it wasn't good, but didn't give anything away as to the level of severity either.

"Okay..." he said slowly, "I'm not seeing anything right off the bat, Casey...how are you feeling?"

He felt like his whole head was ringing and he could feel his blood pounding in his ears, he could hear it. He tried to raise his hands to his face but his arms didn't want to cooperate either, it was a struggle to get one hand to his face and his felt along his cheeks and his teeth, it felt like everything was still in place but to be honest he felt half numb, and he wasn't sure if he was supposed to or not. He heard his breaths, they were coming out in short gasps, if he was hearing it come from someone else, he'd say that person was close to hyperventilating, but somehow the same logic didn't process with him in relation to himself, he just heard that raspy, sightly high pitched wheezing rattling in his ears.

"It's alright, buddy, it's alright," Kelly said as he waved somebody over, Casey couldn't see who, "it's probably nothing, but we're gonna get you to the hospital to make sure."

Suddenly other people were over him, lifting him up just enough to get his air bottle off, and his turnout coat, everybody grabbed him and in one swift move had him on a backboard. He felt a collar being wrapped around his neck and he wanted it off, it wasn't exactly choking him but he felt like he couldn't breathe with it on. They carried him over to the Ambo and lifted him in, he felt the backboard scraping against the floor. He saw one of the paramedics climb in and Kelly was with him and told Matt, "I'll ride with you."

"How bad is it?" Casey could hardly get the words out. Was this how he was going to die? He survived getting his brains blown out two days ago just to die now because some moron drove through the road blocks and tangled the hose and hit him with it.

The paramedic acted completely unfazed as he stood over Casey and told him, "We'll get you taken care of, don't worry, slow your breathing."

Casey almost wanted to laugh. Easy for him to say, he could hear the ragged breaths getting shallower and shallower, he wasn't hyperventilating yet but he could tell he was close. Through the corner of his eye because he couldn't turn his head, he saw Kelly drop down on the floor beside him, and he felt the Squad lieutenant's gloved hand gripping his and heard Kelly trying to talk him through the drive to Med. However fast they were going it wasn't fast enough for his liking, but he dreaded knowing what the doctor would find.

Kelly was confused. Casey had held himself together pretty well in the exam room while they waited to hear the results of the CT scan, and it had been a long wait. The doctor had come in and told them that the scans were clear, and that there was no physical proof Casey had been hit. It had all happened so fast nobody had gotten too good of a look at what happened, but with this newfound fact, Kelly was starting to think maybe Casey had thrown himself down before the nozzle actually reached him, or maybe it just barely made contact with the side of his helmet on the way down. Whatever the answer was, Matt had clearly caught a lucky break.

That's the part that didn't make sense. Casey had just been told there was no trauma, no new damage to his old fracture, he had made a narrow escape, and would be released soon, but advised to go home for the rest of the day, and instead of being relieved...Casey buried his face in his hands and started crying.

"Casey," Kelly felt very confused as he stepped over by the bed and put his arms around his friend, "Casey, it's okay, you're alright."

It might have just been the way Casey's relief was expressing himself, but Kelly had a hard time buying that. This didn't look relieved at all, this looked like if the doctor had come in and said the fracture had been reopened and Casey wouldn't survive the night.

"Matt?" Kelly was starting to get scared, "What is it, buddy? What's wrong?"

Casey shakily breathed in and put his hands down, and sat up straighter against the pillow and said, tears in his voice, "Nothing..." he sniffed and tried again, "nothing's wrong...it...I..."

"I know," Kelly thought he did anyway, "I was scared out of my mind when I saw you go down, but you're okay, buddy, the doctor said so."

"Yeah," Casey didn't sound convinced as he reached around Kelly's back and hugged him.

"I'll tell Boden you're going home for the rest of shift," Kelly said.

Casey nodded glumly. "Thanks..."

"Take it easy, buddy, I'll check in with you later."

Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick

Casey turned on the light beside his bed and looked at the clock. 2:30 in the morning, he was never going to get any sleep. It wasn't just his heart keeping him up now either, he could feel a throbbing in his neck. He pressed his index and middle fingers against his pulse point and tried to figure out if his pulse was usually like this or if it had sped up, or maybe slowed down. It wasn't often he ever felt a need to keep track of stuff like that, but right now it all felt out of whack.

He grabbed his phone but who was he going to call? Severide? He'd either be asleep or out on a call. Casey felt his heart sink as he realized there was no one else to call. He could text Severide and wait to hear back from him, but what was he even going to say? No. He put his phone back on the night stand, and turned the light back out, turned over on his side under the covers, and waited to fall asleep. Long before he did, he just lay there, half holding his breath and listening to the incessant tick tick tick tick tick stemming from his chest, ominously sure it meant something, but what?