Christmas Ornaments
Kelly was on his way to bed when he passed by the door to Casey's room and saw it was open and lights were on. He poked his head in and saw Casey in bed, half curled on his side with his pillow curled under his face. His eyes were looking in Severide's general direction but didn't appear to actually see him.
"Casey?" Kelly asked as he stepped into the room and padded over to the bed, "You feeling alright, buddy?"
"I don't want to go tomorrow," Casey said, his words half muffled by the pillow. "Can't we just forget about it?"
Kelly sat on the edge of the bed and patted Casey's back and asked him, "What's the matter, Casey?"
"I don't want to do this," Matt told him.
Severide didn't understand it, and he honestly couldn't figure out what the big deal was.
It had been over a year now since Casey's apartment was burnt down, and he'd been staying with Kelly ever since. In light of what happened, last year had been a sparse Christmas. This year Casey had finally found a place of his own, had moved out, though Kelly frequently showed himself in and helped himself to staying the night in the guest room. And Severide had mentioned since things were going so well this year by comparison, Casey ought to get a tree and decorate, really make the place look alive for the holidays. They'd planned to go to the store in the morning, get an artificial tree, and some new ornaments for it.
He had a good idea he was walking on eggshells, still he felt he had to do a little prodding to get to the bottom of it.
"What's the problem, Casey?"
"You don't get it," Matt said, and turned his head to better see Kelly, "I lost everything in that fire."
"I know, Matt."
"No, you don't. Everything included all the decorations I had, the ones that were in my family for generations, the ones my niece made me in her art class, the ones that Gabby and I bought together...all of them, all the memories, gone. Now I'm just supposed to get something new and pretend it's the same? It's not."
Kelly thought about it and nodded. He hadn't thought about it like that, then again he'd never had any reason to, he didn't have a past like that, he wasn't left with a whole lot of stuff that held any sentimental value.
"I get that," he told Casey, "I can see why that'd be hard...but this is a new beginning, Casey, new year, new home, new everything, you can start on new memories."
Casey let out a cynical laugh, "You make it sound so easy."
"It's easier than that, it happens when you're not paying attention," Kelly pointed out. "I'll tell you what, we'll go out tomorrow, and we'll just look around and see if anything sticks out for you. You might be surprised."
Casey thought about it and shrugged, "I suppose so."
"Hey," Kelly leaned down and lightly kissed Casey just above his hairline. "Go to sleep."
Matt snorted and elbowed Kelly, who ignored it and pulled the covers up over Casey to his shoulders.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
They went to the store early in the morning to beat most of the Christmas shoppers, and they found a decent looking 7.5 foot tree that already had a set of clear lights on it and put it in the cart, and they found some additional boxes of colored lights, and a few reams of golden tinsel garland to wrap around the tree from top to bottom. They'd even found a light-up star covered in gold metallic tinsel to match the garland. That had been the easy part. Casey stood in front of the shelves with boxes of 4-packed identical ornament balls, and just stared at them, not picking up any for a closer look, just looked at them. Kelly stood beside him and watched him, he made no suggestions, he wanted to see what Casey was going to do of his own volition.
Finally he turned to Kelly and said as he shook his head, "I can't do this, I'm sorry."
Kelly hadn't really been surprised. "It's okay."
"Let's just get this, and..."
"A thought," Kelly poked him to get his attention.
"What?" Casey asked.
"What about a thrift store? They get tons of stuff for Christmas. Somebody else's lifetime of memories that now need a new home."
Casey looked at him for a minute and concluded, "You're a weird man, Kelly Severide."
Kelly chuckled.
"But it might not be a bad idea," Casey said.
"People have no idea what they just throw away," Kelly said as he carried several flat boxes of ornaments into the apartment and set them on the table.
Casey walked in behind him, carrying a larger box full of assorted shaped decorations, supporting the box with one arm he reached in and pulled out a red, green and gold metallic glitter painted beaded ornament. It spun on its hook and swung around one way, then the other, and the blonde lieutenant just stared at it as if in a trance from it.
"Casey."
"Hm?" He lowered the ornament and looked at Kelly.
"You want to put that down?"
Casey snapped back to the here and now and set the box on the table alongside the balls Kelly had brought in.
They'd certainly cleaned up at the thrift shop, some of the ornaments were well worn from years of use, paint had chipped off, glass had dulled, years had been smudged off, others still looked fairly new, they'd gotten entire sets of red and green balls, and a box of old purple and gold acrylic balls. Casey's box contained a four pointed silver glitter star, a five pointed gold glitter star, an old, huge, plastic silver crescent moon with a face on it, a red and gold glitter painted drum, a rhinestone poinsettia, and an antique miniature brass bell with a distinctive ring anytime the clanger in it moved. It wouldn't decorate the whole tree, but it'd look a lot better than just garland and lights.
Kelly had been right, Casey didn't have any idea how it worked, but he'd been right, it had been a lot easier to pick out ornaments that had belonged to somebody else, that already had an established history, that even though he had no way of knowing what it was, he took a strange comfort in knowing whoever they had previously belonged to, they wouldn't just sit around neglected. In a sense he felt it would in some way keep the memories alive that had been established in them over the years.
"Hey," Kelly's voice interrupted his thoughts, "Do you mind if we wait till after next shift to decorate it?"
Casey shook his head, "No, any particular reason?"
"Nah, just figured it'd be nicer if we didn't have to be on shift in a few hours after finishing it," Kelly answered. "We can get a pizza, watch a movie while we put it up."
"I can just guess which one," Casey replied, "Gremlins."
"Nah, 'The Grinch'."
"Again? How many times can you watch that movie?" Casey asked.
"It's funny!" Kelly responded.
"I know that," Casey said, "That's not the point."
"Hey Kelly," Casey said 2 nights later when he walked through the door carrying two boxes of pizza, "I picked up dinner..." He stopped when he saw a sheet draped over the table, covering something. "What's that?"
Kelly came over and took the boxes from Casey and merely said in response, "Why don't you find out?"
Casey looked at him, then looked back at the table, and grabbed the corner of the sheet and pulled it up in one swift movement.
A dozen different Christmas ornaments rested on the table.
"What the..." Casey turned to Kelly and asked him, "What did you do?"
"I got a little help," Kelly answered.
"What?"
"I asked the guys at 51 if they could find any old ornaments they wanted to contribute to your first Christmas in your new home...they came through," Kelly explained.
Casey was at a loss for words and it took him a couple minutes to fully process what Kelly had said. He bent over the table and examined the ornaments one by one, very closely.
The first one he picked up was a very unusual one made out of a white silky material that looked like some kind of corsage with the ribbon looped over in several bands.
"What's this one?"
"Otis sent that one, he said it's something from back home in Russia," Kelly said. "It's been in his family for years."
Casey examined it from all angles, and still wasn't sure what it was supposed to be, but he just stared at it for a couple minutes, and then finally laid it back down and sorted through the rest.
One stuck out as particularly new, and Casey guessed, from the Hallmark collection.
"Let me guess," Casey said as he picked up the Minion ornament, "this one's from Capp, right?"
"Nope, Brett," Kelly answered. He pointed to an old bell made from green and white beads, complete with a beaded loop to hang it from, and said, "This one's from Capp, his mother got it from a friend who made it about 30 years ago."
There were others, two large, heavy jingle bells, one green, one red, on matching plaid hangers tied in bows, an antique glass bell shaped ornament that was a dull teal blue, a gray and white ball with the 3 Wise Men on camels painted on it, dated 1939, a hand painted snowman ornament made out of ping pong balls glued together and covered in gold glitter paint, he guessed one of Herrmann's kids did it in school. A dark green ball with tiny pine cones and holly berries glued on the top. An old off-white ball with playing kittens painted on it in green. A tiny red and white stocking with a loop of matching white fur to hang from a branch.
"And this one's mine," Kelly said as he held something in his balled up hand.
He handed it to Casey, who looked and saw it was a small metal picture frame ornament with the year on it, and an old picture in it of the two of them years ago when they were fresh out of the academy.
"You...you thought of all this?" Casey asked, in mild disbelief.
"I have my moments," Kelly said with a small smirk.
Casey let out a small laugh, and turned and put one arm around Kelly in an awkward hug.
"Thank you."
"So, you want to eat and then do the tree?" Kelly asked, "Or do the tree first and then heat up dinner?"
Casey thought about it for a minute.
"Let's eat first, the tree's not going anywhere," he said.
"We hope," Kelly replied.