Antonio had confirmed that he'd be free the next evening, and gave Sylvie the name of a seafood restaurant to meet him at at 8. She googled, discovered just how fancy it was, and freaked out that she didn't have anything in her wardrobe that would be even vaguely appropriate. In a show of true friendship, Gabby came with her to some vintage stores to find something to wear.
It was the third store they went to when she found the dress. It was a 50's style tea length dress, with a slightly poofed out skirt. The fabric was pale blue, and it set off Sylvie's eyes and hair when she tried it on in the changing room. Gabby had left after that, saying she needed to do some errands. Sylvie was nearly glad, she didn't want her date's sister helping her buy underwear. She found the perfect set in Victoria's Secret and paid for them, feeling fancy with her outfit choice. The last thing was shoes, but she had the perfect pair of low heels to wear.
She got home and ate, and by four decided it was time to get ready to go. She primped and preened, making sure her makeup was perfect before putting on her underwear and dress. She felt like Cinderella, and Gabby's wolf whistle when she walked out made her even more certain of her decision.
"Damn girl, you look great! I shouldn't expect you back tonight, right?" She asked, half joking.
"I wish, but we have shift in the morning and I'm not fitting a change of clothes in this bag," Sylvie responded, picking up her purse. She double checked she had everything in it before zipping it up and grabbing her coat. The weather had taken a turn, and she put her black wool coat on over her outfit, obscuring it but making her feel a lot better about leaving the apartment.
"You look amazing. I'll see you in the morning, I think I'll have an early night." Gabby waved her off, and Sylvie went outside for her cab.
The journey to the restaurant didn't take long, and Antonio was standing outside in a suit and tie. When he saw Sylvie he kissed her cheek chastely before bringing her into the restaurant, hands clasped together.
The food was amazing, fresher than she'd ever had seafood before. She had clam chowder and fish and chips, but swiped some of Antonio's crab cake and mussels. They split a chocolate mousse that Sylvie needed to bite down on her tongue from moaning about, as they chatted about how his case was going. When the bill came Sylvie went to grab the sleek leather billfold, but Antonio got to it first.
"I want to treat you, let me do that. You can get breakfast the next time we're both off the same day," he said, not even looking at the bill but sliding his credit card in. Sylvie smiled at his words and tipped her wine glass to him, taking a sip of the chardonnay they'd ordered. When the bill came back they stood to leave, and he held up her coat so she could shrug it on without any issues.
They walked a few blocks down the street to a brewery, and Antonio again held the door open for her. This time Sylvie managed to hand over her card for their drinks, and they sat and talked and flirted about everything and nothing. By the time it was eleven, they were both flagging and decided to leave. Outside, Antonio looked down at her and kissed her once.
"We can head to our own places now, or you can come back to mine. I know you're on shift in the morning and have to leave early, but it's up to you-" Sylvie cut him off with a kiss, making it clear she wanted back to his apartment. They hailed a cab and managed to keep their hands off each other in the back seat, despite both wanting anything but to be apart. This time the making out started in the elevator, and they stumbled to his apartment door and into his bed.
Her alarm went off at five, and she groaned from too little sleep. Antonio stirred beside her, throwing an arm over her. "Don't go…you can stay," he murmured, kissing the spot under her ear that made her melt.
"Shift in three hours. I need to go home and change and shower and make myself presentable." She turned and kissed him long and slow. "I'll see you tomorrow night? Depending on your case." She kissed him one last time before getting up and dressing. Her clothes were strewn around the apartment, and she felt less dressed up doing a walk of shame than she had the night before. It didn't take long for her uber to arrive to bring her home.
The apartment was quiet when she got in, Gabby's alarm never went off till six. Sylvie decided to mainline her first mug of coffee for the day and switched the coffee pot on, stirring the grinds and getting it set up. She left her heels by the door, but kept her coat wrapped around her in the cool morning air.
The pot finally brewed, and she poured a mug for herself, doctoring it with the vanilla creamer she used on very special occasions. She lifted the mug to her chin, savouring the warmth, turning around to face the living room. And then she nearly screamed in shock.
Matt was walking out of Gabby's room, keeping quiet but she recognised him immediately. He lifted his head, saw Sylvie, and immediately his hand went to the back of his head, scratching it awkwardly. She grabbed a mug for him and handed it over.
"I'm gonna guess you want to know what's going on?" He asked, looking at her awkward smile.
"Let's go with no, because you don't want to know why I'm sneaking into my apartment when you're sneaking out of it, deal?"
"Deal. Thanks for the coffee, Sylvie. I'm gonna just down it and leave, see you on shift?" She nodded in agreement, draining her own coffee and leaving her mug in the sink.
It didn't take long for her to shower and change, and thankfully her work tee would cover most of the love bites, and what the tee didn't cover her parka would. Shortly after getting ready she could hear Gabby in the living room. She walked out, half intent on asking her about Matt, half intent to do nothing. As soon as she entered the living room, her questions were answered.
"I really, really, really do not want to talk about this right now. Can we just agree to pretend that you saw nothing this morning, and I heard nothing about the, and I quote, 'impressive hickey on Brett's neck'?" Gabby said, handing over a fresh mug of coffee.
"That is fine by me. But I demand a wine night this week to find out what's going on with you. I'll keep my contributions to a PG-13 level for you, but I want details." Sylvie downed her coffee, spotting the time. "C'mon, let's go," she said, picking up her duffle and heading for the door.
They drove in, staying quiet for the trip. Sylvie wasn't hungover, but she was groggy on too little sleep and knew that just because she hadn't slept it'd be a busy day. It didn't take long for her to be proven correct.
Truck 81, Squad 3, Ambulance 61. Structure fire, 1100 South Hermitage
Sylvie hopped into the passenger seat, content to let Mills drive for the morning. When they arrived there the building was ablaze, and a man was fighting against the onlookers to get back inside. She tried to do a primary survey, but he was too insistent to get it done.
She and Peter watched as the teams entered, before hearing Boden yell at them all to get out. She counted as everyone left the fire, a habit she'd started to develop after the abduction. One, two, three, four out from Squad. One, two, three, four, five out from Truck. Who was still in there?
Her thoughts were realised when she heard Herrmann over the radio "Chief, I'm stuck, got to bail out. I'm by the upper northwest window." Sylvie watched the window and saw as they raised the ladder to get Herrmann and the bundle he was carrying. Kelly went up first, grabbing the bundle and bringing it down. She ran over, and discovered the bundle was a boy, maybe two years old at most. She grabbed him from Kelly and brought him to the gurney to do a survey.
"I'm hearing stridor, let me check his throat," Sylvie called out, opening the boy's mouth to see how much smoke he'd inhaled. "Oh, the inhalation burns are really bad." She pushed through the worry for the boy and got to work checking everything else.
"I'll bag him," Mills ordered, pointing Sylvie to one of the trays. "Brett, use the IO drill to get a line."
She grabbed the red drill and held the boy steady, taking a deep breath to steady herself. She got the line in first time into his tibia, and hooked up the fluids.
"I'll drive, stay there with him. I'll alert Med we're on the way," she said to Peter before closing the back of the ambo doors.
"How is he?" Herrmann came straight over to check on the patient, but Sylvie didn't have time to be gracious or consoling.
"Inhalation burns, we're taking him to Chicago Med. I have to go now." She ran to the cab, jumped in, and immediately flicked the sirens on while they ran to the hospital.
The normal routine happened when they got there, but the child looked so alone and she felt awful leaving him. The doctor gave her a thumbs up for getting the IO line in and told them that he had burns to his trachea and lungs. She was hopeful, but immediately ran back to look after him. She and Mills just stared at each other before leaving the ER for the house.
When they returned, everyone from Truck was cleaning it down after the fire. As soon as they got out of the cab, their colleagues were straight up to them.
"How is he?" Herrmann asked, true fear on his face.
"I don't know. It was a tough intubation but we got him there alive." Peter's face was ashen as he spoke, pulling off his knit cap.
"He's on a ventilator. Damage to his lungs and trachea, but the doctors are optimistic." Her words put a smile on Herrmann's face, making them all feel a little better. "I'm gonna hit the laundry before we get called out again, let me know if anyone needs to be checked after that fire," she called over her shoulder as she moved into the main area of the house.
She'd just gotten a wash started when Mills came down to the laundry room. "Chief wants us, Casey and Herrmann in his office about that call right now." She followed him, arriving into the small office where Burgess and Roman were already standing. Sylvie nodded at everyone in the room, but zoned out until Burgess asked her a direct question.
"Brett, was the kid acting unusual or erratic?" Sylvie shot back to attention.
"He was lethargic from his O2 sats being down, and he was kicking like hell before I got a grip, but I was drilling an IV into his leg and we didn't have pain meds suitable for kids that young that we're allowed to give. It was pretty normal, I thought."
"PD got this video saying the father was at fault. It's pretty awful, so you don't have to watch it if you don't want to." Roman handed his smartphone over to Matt, who pressed play on the video. Sylvie watched as the terrified father from earlier that day was blowing smoke into his baby boy's face, getting the kid high on God knows what. She clamped her hand over her mouth in shock, and watched as Herrmann nearly hit the wall in anger. He was a father, and she knew his youngest was about the same age as that little boy.
Sylvie and Peter were excused from the meeting, and she went and lay on her bunk. Normally that was the signal to the world that they needed a call, but she managed about twenty minutes disturbed sleep before Gabby appeared and shook her.
"We're going on a search to see what happened with that fire. Is what Herrmann said true? I saw you in Boden's office with him and the Lieutenant."
Sylvie arched an eyebrow at Gabby calling Matt the Lieutenant. Her friend had the decency to blush, but didn't elaborate.
"Yeah, it's true. I don't know what he was using or why he did it, but he did it and now there's a baby affected by all of this. Go see what you can find, Gabby." She rubbed her hand on her friend's shoulder, watching as Gabby left.
Sylvie spent the next few blessedly quiet hours keeping calm and keeping things going. She got her laundry dry, and then prepped lunch. She had a meat sauce going, and six boxes of pasta ready for when Truck arrived back. It'd keep them going, and with Gabby out on the call she figured she'd be nice and do something with her nervous energy.
Truck 81, Squad 3, Ambulance 81. Vehicle incident, Docks
And there was her favourite thing to do. Switching off the burners and putting a lid on the sauce, she got to the ambo first. They pulled out ahead of Squad, leading the way to the warehouses surrounding the docks. She didn't know what she expected to see, but it wasn't the scene before them. There were kids streaming out the other entrances to get away, and in the middle of the warehouse was a car smashed into a pole, crushing a young woman between the pole and the car. Sylvie got out of the ambo immediately, her and Peter grabbing the gurney, backboards and their jump bags. Matt had gotten out of the truck and immediately taken the lead on it.
"Mills and Brett, check on the girl. See if it's safe to bring this mess away from her."
"On it!" Sylvie called out to him before turning to her partner. "You got it?"
"Yeah. She might have crush syndrome, ok?" Mills said, taking a look at the pool of blood at the girl's feet.
"I'm gonna run an IV, prep an amp of sodium bicarb." She immediately went over and introduced herself to the scared girl.
"Hey, I'm Sylvie, and that's my partner, Peter. We're gonna look after you. I want to give you something for the pain so you'll feel a little pinch in your hand, ok?" The girl nodded, and Sylvie got the vein first try, hooking up a bag of saline to keep some fluids going in her body.
It didn't take long for them to establish that they could move the car away. Sylvie was pulled back away from the movements as Peter and Squad held the girl's bodyweight themselves before transporting her to the backboard. Within minutes their sirens were going as they made their way to Chicago Med to transport her. They spotted Maggie, and got the news that the baby they brought in had died.
When they arrived in they broke the news, and Herrmann punched the truck. Nobody could be angry at him, but they surrounded him with quiet affection and a listening ear if he needed it. Kid calls cut them all hard, but this boy was the same age as his youngest.
The rest of the night was quiet, but Sylvie couldn't sleep. Antonio had sent her a couple of texts, and she'd replied, but it was too awkward to try keep a full conversation going with him while she was working. She made her way out to the common room, grabbing a tub of vanilla ice cream from the freezer. Gabby was sitting on the couch, so she took two spoons from the drawer before walking over.
"Did you draw night watch?" She asked, handing over a spoon.
"No, I just couldn't sleep. There's coffee on if you want some." Gabby replied, taking the spoon and digging straight into the ice cream.
"Nah, I want to actually sleep when I get home. Just thinking about everything, you know?"
"Oh I do. I guess you want the details on last night?" Gabby took another big spoon of ice cream, but she still saw Sylvie's nod.
"If you want to share. We live together, we don't have to tell each other everything, you know?"
"I know, but still. Ugh. He called me into his quarters the shift after we found out how Shay had died, and asked me how I was doing. And one thing led to another, and another, and another, and well sex happened." Sylvie laughed at how matter of factly her friend was talking about it.
"It just happened?" She asked, looking Gabby up and down.
"Yeah. We were always good in bed together, and he's hot, and I'm hot. But we said that'd be the last time."
"That was four weeks ago, I saw this morning." Sylvie took another spoonful, then put her spoon in her pocket, it was enough ice cream for one nighttime feast.
"Yeah. But we've been doing a friends with benefits kind of thing. When you've been at Zumba, Severide's been out at Molly's, that kind of thing. It's just sex, nothing else. It scratches an itch, you know?" At Gabby's words, Sylvie sat up straight and turned around to face her roommate.
"It's not just sex with the two of you, Gabby. You love him, and he's still brokenhearted about you. You need to decide if you see a future together, or if it's a hit it and quit it thing. Neither of you will be able to move on if you don't do it." Sylvie put the lid back on the ice cream, about to stand to put it away.
"You're right. It's just…he's been a constant in my life as at least a friend for the last nearly six years. How am I supposed to walk away from that while still seeing him every day?" She sounded like she was about to cry, and if Sylvie had been anywhere else with her she would have wrapped her in a hug.
"You have to decide which you want more. Him or the truck. We can't always get everything we want, you know?"
The rest of the shift was peaceful, and the two women drove home in near silence. Antonio let her know he couldn't do breakfast, but she honestly didn't mind too much. Instead of going to bed, Sylvie baked a cheesecake to keep herself sane. The mixing and weighing and measuring helped put her mind at ease after that hellish shift, and by the time she finished she had a New York style cheesecake sitting on the counter with a jar of strawberry jam beside it.
A firm knock on the door startled her, and she opened it to see Matt standing there. "Can I come in?" He asked, and she held the door open for him.
"Gabby's in her room. I'm going to bundle this up and bring it over to Kelly and give you some privacy. If you're still here in a few hours, put a sock on the door, ok?" She got a wave from the older man, and proceeded to use the cake tin her Mom had given her when she got engaged to load up the cheesecake and head to Kelly's.
He was groggy opening the door, but smiled seeing Sylvie on the other side. "Hey, I think Casey's in bed still, what are you doing here?" He asked, smiling as he took in the clear cake tin. "Is that cheesecake?"
"And homemade strawberry jam, yes," she replied, walking in. "Want a slice?"
"Oh yes. Lemme get properly dressed first." Kelly left to put pants on, and she carefully cut two slices of the cake, spooning the fresh jam over the top. By the time he arrived back out she'd added a fork to each plate, and pushed his over to him.
"Damn, Brett. Remind me why we annulled again?" He asked, taking a second bite quickly.
"Because we both know that if the two of us stayed married, one of us would be arrested by Voight for murder?" He guffawed at her answer, but nodded, agreeing. "You're stuck with me for the next few hours. I've got a Zumba class at two, but I didn't want to stay home until I was ready to head. Mind giving me a ride to the studio in return for me leaving the rest of the cheesecake here?" She asked, and Kelly eagerly agreed.
"What is that Zumba thing anyway?" He asked, slicing off a thin sliver from his slice.
"It's like a workout dance routine. You dance to upbeat music, and do repetitive bodyweight exercises to it. I love doing it, and the instructor's great. It's a good cardio workout." She finished her slice, and stood to put her plate in the dishwasher.
"Is it just women who do it?" He asked, and Sylvie turned to stare at him.
"I mean men can do it, yeah, but I don't think you'd be interested in it."
"Why not? It sounds fun, and better than going for a three miler like I planned this afternoon. Can I pay when I get there?" He looked excited, and it made Sylvie feel awful.
"Kelly, you can't come to this class. Try find a different one if you're interested, but you really can't come to this one." Kelly stood and grabbed Sylvie around the waist.
"Why not? Keeping a dirty little secret from me, Brett? As your ex husband I'm disgusted that you wouldn't tell me everything!" He went in for the kill, tickling just under her ribcage till Sylvie gave up, crying with laughter.
"Ok, ok! I'll tell you why!" She took a moment to take some deep breaths and compose herself. "You know the instructor, and I can definitely state that if they saw you, they'd be embarrassed. They nearly kicked me out of the class because they didn't want anyone to know who it was." Kelly's face darkened for a moment as he thought who could run it.
"It's got to be Otis doing it, right?" Sylvie shook her head no. "I don't think any of my squad guys would do it except Capp, and he'd be more likely to spread it around the house that he did it. Casey definitely doesn't, he doesn't have time. From what you've said about it Mouch doesn't have the co-ordination, Herrmann's too busy with Molly's, Gabby would have admitted it…" His voice trailed off as he realised.
"Joe Cruz is a fitness instructor on the side. It's Cruz, isn't it?" His laughter rang around the apartment as he saw from the look on Sylvie's face that he was right.
"You can't tell anyone! He was so terrified for anyone to know about it, but he's one of the best instructors in Chicago. If he taught anywhere except Pilsen he'd have waiting lists for months." She felt so guilty for even inadvertently outing Cruz, but Kelly just smiled.
"Team building time! It's a good workout, and if he sees all of us there he'll know we're not ashamed of it. We all know how expensive this city is to live in, and he's paying for his brother down in Florida." Kelly grabbed his phone and activated the second shift phone tree, and within moments his phone wouldn't stop buzzing from the agreements to go to the class at two.
Sylvie arrived as normal, pretending to ignore the crowd of firefighters who'd arrived to the class. They were all there in their workout gear, and as the music started they began the routine. Joe started his class like normal, upbeat and getting everyone pumped, until he spotted the shift there and his face fell for a moment. Sylvie just smiled and nodded at him, and they went with the class.
By the time it ended she was sweating and out of breath, her coworkers not much better off. They were all grinning at Cruz when he came over, everyone wrapping him in a hug before they all decided to head their separate ways. Sylvie and Gabby drove home, ignoring the Matt Casey shaped topic of conversation in the car.