Sacrifice

Kelly Severide stood just outside the door to Matt Casey's hospital room, he'd been futilely trying to hold himself together for hours, but he was failing miserably as loud heaving sobs broke out of him as he contemplated everything that had happened to his best friend, and what the future might hold for Casey if he survived.

Casey had said he was doing fine. Casey always said he was fine, that was how he got out of having to actually talk about what was going on in his life...and usually Kelly could tell the difference between when Matt really was fine, and when he was just saying it. Like an idiot, he'd believed Matt this time. He'd listened when Casey said he could make it on his own and didn't need Severide hovering over him, he was fine. Kelly decided Matt knew what he was talking about and agreed to give his best friend some space. He'd packed his bags and gone back to his own apartment. That had been three days ago.

He'd talked with Casey on the phone last night, he still sounded fine, Kelly couldn't pick up on anything in the Truck lieutenant's voice that suggested otherwise. So...it had only been somewhere between last night and this morning that Casey did what he'd done...and knowing this didn't give Kelly any comfort. However long it had been, it was enough time that Casey still might not survive what he'd done to himself, time enough that the doctors were still leery about making any predictions.

He'd tried calling Casey that morning, and it went straight to voicemail. So he'd gone over to see Casey in person, and found the door was still locked. He'd broken down the door and went in and found Casey sprawled on the kitchen floor. His nose still burned as he remembered the smell of the chemicals...

It had all started a week ago. That was the first time Casey had been put in the hospital in connection to what was going on now. Kelly was listed as Matt's emergency contact, so the hospital had called him when they brought him in, but they hadn't been able to give him a lot of details over the phone. He rushed over, and was directed to Matt's room. The doctor had come out and talked to him before he went in. There was clear evidence that Matt had been sexually assaulted. The phrase played itself back in Kelly's head like it was taunting him, he hated the term, he thought it was patronizing, as much as it killed him to acknowledge it, Casey had been raped. The doctor had guessed by more than one person, and they'd collected DNA samples to send off to the crime lab, hopefully the men responsible could be identified from that, and an arrest could be made.

He'd gone into the room but Casey didn't want to see him and yelled at him to get out and leave him alone. He'd stayed at the hospital for several hours until Casey finally let him come in without having a tantrum. Tearfully, Casey broke down and told him what they'd done to him. Kelly thought he could take it, he was somehow able to maintain a brave face the whole time during Casey's confession, and later he left the room, and ran down the hall to the men's room and threw up. The knowledge of what had happened to his best friend made him violently sick like a dog, and for a while Kelly wasn't sure if he'd be able to stop.

When he was finally able to calm down, he made the decision then and there that he was going to be there for Casey to help him get through this. Matt didn't want the rest of the guys at 51 to find out what had happened, and Kelly could definitely understand that and tried to respect his wishes. After a day, Casey was released from the hospital, and he went home and Kelly went home with him. He tried to do whatever it was he needed to do to help Casey, but he didn't know what that was. Every instinct in his body was telling him all the times that Casey started beating things with his fists and screaming and crying and shaking, to hug him and hold him and tell Matt that it was over and he was safe now. But the first time he tried, Casey beat the hell out of him and screamed at him not to touch him, it hadn't been enough to stop him from trying again, but the second, third and fourth time Casey nearly killed him, were enough to do the trick. But with every day, sometimes every hour, Matt kept having breakdowns and would crumble to the floor in a heap sobbing uncontrollably, and Kelly felt completely helpless since he couldn't do the only things he knew to do, and all he could do was watch this happen, which made him wish he could crawl under a rock somewhere and just die, because of how powerless he felt that he couldn't help Matt as he struggled through this.

After the first few days, Casey seemed to get better, at least he became more quiet, and reserved. Kelly thought that meant he was getting better, he should've realized it wouldn't be that easy. But he didn't, and he left, he left Casey alone...and sometime between last night and this morning, Matt drank a bottle of bleach and succumbed to the effects of the chemicals.

Was it a suicide attempt? Was Casey that beyond all hope? It was at the forefront of Kelly's mind as he continued mindlessly pacing around, waiting for something to change, waiting for some update. But somewhere in him, he suspected that wasn't the true reason why Casey had done it. He felt himself shaking as he recalled Matt's account of the attack. He had no experience in this field whatsoever, he could only guess, but a nagging part of him kept thinking about the possibility that Casey had done what he did in a desperate attempt to forget about what they'd done to him. His blood ran cold as he remembered the doctor explaining Casey had thrown up during the exam, and it had been collected in hopes that DNA from his rapists could be collected from the vomit.

Just thinking about it, remembering it, was making Kelly's head throb so hard it felt like it was going to explode and he could barely see. Why was this happening? Why Casey? Why did any of this have to happen? Couldn't something just make it all stop?...

Boden entered the hospital room and turned his head at a sound and saw Matt Casey pressed against the wall, his hands covering most of his face as he sobbed uncontrollably. The battalion chief turned and looked over at Severide in the hospital bed and made his way over to the Truck lieutenant who didn't seem capable of moving.

"Matt..."

A ragged breath escaped Casey as he reluctantly lowered his hands. He wouldn't look at the chief, just stared straight ahead at his best friend, currently on life support, tears running down his face, his throat thick with more of them.

"How..."

It was the only word Casey could get out at first, but after a few attempts, there were more.

"How could this happen?" he wanted to know. "Why Kelly?"

"There's no good answer for that, Matt," Boden told him, "It just happened."

"It's not right," the blonde tearfully responded.

Boden glanced towards the floor and nodded once, "I know."

Casey dropped his head to his chest and started crying again.

"The doctor said they're going to try waking him up tomorrow and taking him off the vent," Boden told him, though he was sure Matt already knew this.

"What if it doesn't work?" Casey asked fearfully.

"You can't think like that," Boden told him.

"What if it doesn't?" Casey repeated in a small voice.

"Kelly's a fighter, Matt, you know that, he's tough, if anybody can recover from this, it's him," Boden said.

His speech however had no effect on Matt as the blonde firefighter's chest started heaving with a fresh onset of body wracking sobs. Boden reached over and pulled Casey towards him, the lieutenant dropped his head on the battalion chief's shoulder as he took in and let out a series of short gasping breaths, he'd be hyperventilating before too long but he didn't seem able to stop it.

"It's going to be alright, Matt," Boden tried to assure him, "Kelly's going to recover from this."

"Why did he have to be there?" Casey asked helplessly. "Why him?"

Boden patted Casey on the back absently and merely responded, "I don't know."