Patchwork

2009-

Kelly Severide walked through the automatic doors of Lakeshore Hospital and made his way to the waiting room where he found the two guys he was looking for. Andy had sent him a text that there was bad news and Casey wasn't right, and he better get his ass over there and check it out for himself. Sure enough, Casey and Darden were still there, Casey had slunk out of his chair and parked himself against the wall, his knees were against his chest, he stared down at the floor with blank eyes. Andy sat in the chair beside him, looking straight ahead at Kelly with a helpless look on his face.

Three days ago they'd responded to a house fire, there was a family trapped inside. They'd gotten out the mother, and the father, and Casey had crashed through the front window with their 3-year-old daughter, Maria Gonzales, in tow, just before the whole house exploded into flames. The family had been taken to Lakeshore to be checked over, the parents were cleared after treatment for smoke inhalation, but it turned out that Maria had a pre-existing heart condition and was scheduled to have surgery in three days, so the doctors kept her at the hospital until the operation.

Severide cautiously made his way over to his friends and addressed the man sitting on the floor, "Casey, what's going on?"

Casey continued to stare at the floor, and Kelly wasn't sure he'd even heard him, until he suddenly blurted out, "She's dead."

"What?"

"Maria...she-"

Matt had decided to cut out for half an hour, keeping his radio on incase a call came in, and see how the little girl was doing. Andy had decided to go with him, and they'd entered the hospital just as a code was called. Casey saw people rushing and something just told him that it was Maria, he followed them, and found himself standing outside the OR where a team of doctors stood around the operating table working on the tiny child whose whole chest was spread open.

Being a firefighter, Casey had seen a lot of things that most people wouldn't be able to deal with, things nobody should ever have to deal with. But the sight of the doctor sticking his bloody hand in Maria's chest to manually massage the heart to try and get it beating again, only for them to call it a few minutes later, Casey had felt like the floor was falling away from him, like everything was falling away. He wasn't even aware of how he'd gotten back to the waiting room, he wasn't aware how much time had passed, what was going on, everything seemed like a blur now.

"Casey." Kelly wasn't even sure what to say, but he was trying to get Matt's attention, instead he seemed lost somewhere in a daze.

"What did I save her for?" Casey questioned. "I pulled her out of a fire so she can die on an operating table three days later...what was the point?"

"Casey-"

"I didn't save her," Casey said, ignoring the voices around him, "all I did was prolong her death."

"Casey you can't think like that," Kelly told him.

"She's dead, isn't she? It's true. No good came from my getting her out of that fire."

Kelly grabbed Casey by the wrists and tried to pull him to his feet, "Come on, Casey, let's get you up."

Anytime a firefighter failed to save someone on a job, that was seen as a failure; once they got victims to the hospital, it was standard protocol to move on and not know what happened to them afterwards, not that that ever stopped anyone at 51 from inquiring about the cases that particularly stuck out to them. If they'd actually done that more often it might've turned out that a lot of calls had similar end results like this, as it was, it was rare that they ever heard of somebody they rescued dying shortly after and it not being related to the fire or the accident they were in.

It was hard to lose anybody on a call, they were all hard to live with, but kids were the worst. And the younger they were, the harder they were to accept.

"Casey, this wasn't your fault."

Casey didn't respond, but Kelly could see the tears starting to well up in his eyes, and quickly spilled over and ran down his face. A choked sound escaped him and his whole body doubled over. Kelly and Andy both caught him and pulled him back upright and stood on either side of him and put their arms around him and held him as he started to break down.

"This isn't your fault, Casey, these things just happen," Kelly tried to tell him. He knew it didn't help, but it was the truth, and that was all he could offer.

After a little while they were able to get Casey out of the hospital and they headed back to 51. Severide spoke with Boden and got Casey sent home for the rest of shift to come to terms with what had happened.

2012-

"Maria...Maria..."

Casey writhed around on the hospital bed and murmured half coherently.

Kelly went over to the bed and tried to rouse Casey. "Matt...Matt, wake up."

It was an exercise in futility, and Kelly knew it, but he couldn't accept it. Casey had been going in and out of consciousness for the last two days, he was pumped full of drugs and never stayed awake long enough to realize where he was, and he hardly said anything whether he was awake or not, except for that name. That was the only consistent thing he'd said since he'd been taken to the hospital.

They'd been on a call, a house fire, a family of three, the daughter was trapped in an upstairs bedroom. The parents had already been rescued from the house, the fire was raging out of control, the stairs were gone, Casey made a judgment call and jumped out of a second story window with the 6-year-old girl clutched in his arms and partially shielded from the flames with his turnout coat. He'd hit the ground, hard, he was already unconscious by the time anybody got to him. Nothing had been broken, luckily, but half his body was bruised and he'd been monitored for a grade three concussion. Scans had shown no brain bleed but there was still no knowledge about the full extent of his injuries, and that couldn't be determined until he was fully conscious and could answer questions.

"Maria..." that was the only thing Casey had said since he'd been brought in, and every time he said it, he sounded terrified.

"Fire department, call out!"

Casey looked around the smoke filled room and listened. There was a tiny voice crying out from somewhere, he tried following the sound and traced it to a bedroom with toys, a child sized bed, and pink walls that were steadily turning black from the fire and smoke. Casey's eyes scanned over the room and saw the closet door ajar. He threw it open and saw a girl with long brown hair in a ponytail pinned under several boxes that had fallen on her.

"What's your name, sweetie?" Casey asked as he grabbed the boxes and flung them to the side.

"Maria," the terrified girl answered shakily.

"Maria, my name's Matt, I'm gonna get you out of here. Your mom and dad are safe and I'm gonna get you to them, okay?"

"Okay," she answered, not sounding entirely convinced.

The last box was thrown in the corner and Casey picked the girl up in his arms. He'd been in the house less than five minutes, as he turned towards the door he saw the fire getting worse from the hall and knew they didn't have much time. He hit his radio and told Boden, "I found the girl, Chief, we're coming out."

In that moment the house shook and Casey thought there'd been an explosion. Over the radio he heard somebody say the stairs were gone, there were ominous sounds overhead as parts of the ceiling started to collapse, Maria was screaming. Casey went over to the window and threw it open and looked out, there was no ladder and there wasn't time to set one up.

"Maria," he told the terrified child, "I need you to be really brave for me. Just hold on to me as tight as you can, and we're going to get out of here."

He felt her tiny hands gripping his suspenders and holding on with all her might.

"Close your eyes," Casey said as he kept hold of her with one hand and drew his turnout coat over her with the other, "here we go!"

He charged towards the window and leapt out. Falling never took as long as you thought it would, there was no time to make sure anything was right. He plummeted straight down and as he felt his body hit the ground, he became aware of the sickening sensation of a smaller body under him. He'd crushed Maria with the weight of his own body and the 80 pounds of turnout gear on him. Then everything went black.