Kelly headed into the bedroom and just got one foot in the door when he heard a sound that jolted his attention, it took a second to realize it was Casey crying where he sat on the edge of the bed with his head down, Kelly stepped back out of the room before it occurred to him it was too late to pretend he hadn't walked in on this. He stepped just enough in the room to look at the man who raised his head to look over at him, and say, "Sorry, I'll come back later."

"No, stay," Casey's voice was surprisingly strong as he wiped the back of his hand across his cheek. He sniffed, sat up straighter and added, "It's okay."

Kelly didn't move much except to poke his head in a little more as he asked uncertainly, "Are you sure?"

Matt nodded, "Yeah."

Kelly felt he was walking on eggshells, and taking a massive risk by asking, but he had to ask, "What's the matter, Matt?"

Casey looked at him, his chest rose and dropped with a heaving sigh before he answered, "I was just thinking...about when this all started."

"You mean when your apartment was torched?"

Casey shook his head, "No, when Gabby left, that night you came over to the apartment...I know," he raised a hand to gesture in accompaniment as he spoke, "No point dwelling on the past, there's nothing I can do about it, or I'd go back and change it...but I can't help it, I think about it all the time...I resent her, Kelly, I resent what she did...I hate her for it."

Kelly stood in the doorway and said nothing, figuring that was his safest option, figuring Casey would explain on his own, he did.

"I know I shouldn't complain, because in the end everything worked out, I'm here, I'm with you, I'm...putting my life back together, but I just hate her so much for what she did, Kelly. I hate that she put me in this position to begin with. I spent my whole life making sure I had my expenses covered, and I told her...I tried to tell her what it was like in my family, what we'd all gone through, she didn't get it, I don't think she even listened...all she cared about was what she wanted when she wanted it, she never thought about the fact the bills were going to pile up if we didn't watch it. Then she just runs me into a hole and leaves me to clean up the mess when she runs out. And she didn't know I could, as far as she knew she took all the money I had when she emptied out that account, as far as she knew I was stuck with enough credit card debt to bury me...I don't get it, Kelly, how could you do that to someone, how could you do that to the person you married?" There was a pause, he sighed again, and laughed miserably, "Some marriage, all that mattered to Gabby was what she could get out of it, it was never a partnership to her." Matt was silent for a minute with a blank look on his face, then he turned to Kelly and asked him, "Do you...do you think she ever actually loved me? Or was it all just to see what she could get out of the relationship?"

Kelly shook his head, dumbstruck by the question. "I don't know...I'm not an expert on relationships, you know that. Renee...I don't know." He walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it and looked at Matt. "I'm sorry, Casey."

Matt just shook his head, looking completely lost, "I just don't get it, Kelly. When we first got together we didn't discuss our finances at all, I don't even remember where it started. Suddenly, I'm looking at the bills and I'm getting worried, I know how quickly this can get past us and we wouldn't even realize it."

Kelly sat there and watched Casey as he talked, he didn't interrupt, and he didn't say anything immediately after. There was a moment's silence between them before he said, cautiously, a bit hesitantly, "I'm sorry...I know you're not supposed to ask about stuff like this...but can I ask you...how much did..."

Casey interlaced his fingers together and pressed both hands against his mouth absently as he thought, then he lowered them and told Kelly, "We had about $10,000 in our joint account. Knowing she'd run it down to nothing and then taken even that, that was bad, but I wasn't all that concerned because I still had my main account. Then I found out about the credit cards. We had two, a main one, and a backup for emergencies, incase one got lost, or stolen, or...maxed out and we needed something. She maxed both of them out...to the tune of...forty...five...thousand...bucks."

Kelly grimaced at that news.

Casey wrapped one hand over his mouth and jaws in recoil of the memory. He told Kelly, "I couldn't believe it. I'd gone from having enough money that I didn't have to worry about any sudden financial problems...and then it was all gone, just like that," he snapped his fingers. "All I had left was enough to cover rent and food for the next few months. I couldn't even breathe, everything was going through my mind. If anything happened, a trip to Med that my insurance wouldn't cover, I have to take my truck into the shop, the rent's increased, my phone gets stolen, I get a traffic ticket, a surprise audit in the mail, one of my tires blow, anything..." he shook his head helplessly, "I couldn't even think. I figured if I could get some construction jobs lined up it'd help but nobody was hiring at the time. I was going to ask the chief about taking on extra shifts during the month and hoping that would help balance things out...but before I could do that, you found out...and you gave the landlord two months' rent." Matt slowly shook his head, "You have no idea what that meant to me, Kelly." Casey became overwhelmed by the memories and started crying again.

Kelly draped an arm around Casey's shoulders and pulled the blonde man against him and hugged him and quietly murmured, "It's okay, Matt, it's okay, calm down."

A couple minutes later Casey was able to pull himself together, sheepishly he pulled away from Kelly and ran a hand over his cheeks and said, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"I know I'm being stupid about the whole thing, but it was just so embarrassing, Kelly, I couldn't explain what was happening to anybody else at 51, they wouldn't get it," Matt told him. "Suddenly I'm going over the cost of everything in my head to figure out what I can and can't afford...and how do you explain to the people you work with that suddenly you can't afford anything anymore? I couldn't afford new tools for my construction work, I couldn't afford to go with you to the Blackhawks game, I couldn't afford a week's worth of cover charges at Molly's, I couldn't tell anybody about that. Especially with the way they all dote on Gabby, they'd never believe she could do something like that, so there especially wasn't any point in telling anyone. I hadn't planned to tell you about it either."

"We knew something was wrong, but nobody knew what, I was worried about you," Kelly replied.

Casey glanced down and said humbly, "Thank you."

Kelly hugged him again and told him, "I love you, Matt."

A breath hitched in Casey's throat, and he responded, "I love you too, Kelly."

Kelly still felt a bit like an idiot for walking into the middle of this and he told Matt, "Listen, I can take the couch tonight if you want to be alone."

Casey shook his head, "No...don't be stupid...this is your room-"

"It's our room," Severide pointed out, "and I understand if you need some privacy."

"No...no," Matt clung to him even tighter and responded, "You're all I have left, I need you, Kelly."

That took the Squad lieutenant by surprise and he couldn't figure out how to respond, finally he did by absently patting Matt's shoulders as he reassured his best friend, "I'm right here, Matt, everything's fine."

Casey sat in the driver's seat of his pickup and just blankly stared straight ahead, not looking at anything through the windshield, not aware of anything that was going on, just sat there in a stupor. He slowly looked around the truck, and after several long minutes, he finally reached for the door handle and stepped out.

He stood at the curb and looked at his truck. He ran a hand over the hood, fondly, nostalgically, remembering all the years he'd had it and how good it had been all that time. His eyes squeezed shut and a sudden dry sob rose up from his chest.

"Hey."

He opened his eyes and turned around and saw Kelly standing behind him.

"So what'd the guy say?" he asked.

Casey turned back to the truck, gestured with one hand as he tried to explain, finally telling him, "He said it has so many things wrong with it, that it wouldn't be worth the price it'd cost...that I should just junk it and get another one."

"I'm sorry, Casey."

Kelly really was, he knew that Casey had been hoping his truck just needed a few simple repairs, he'd been having problems with it for a while, and lately the problems just seemed to keep multiplying. He could appreciate what it meant for Casey, his truck was everything to him, he'd never had a car, the truck was everything, it was for his work, it was for beating around in, it was for everything in his daily life, he'd had it when he didn't have anything or anyone else, it was the only thing he'd had left after his apartment and everything in it had been set on fire, the only thing left that he owned, that he could call his own, and now he'd just lost it too.

"Come here," Kelly put an arm around Casey and pulled the blonde man against him when he heard another dry sob work loose, he hugged his friend and told him, "I know, I know...I'm sorry..."

Casey struggled to form coherent words but he finally got them out, "This shouldn't be so hard, it's just a truck, it's..."

"It's more than that, Matt, and you know it," Kelly told him. "It'll be alright, we'll find another one."

"I don't want another one!" Casey sniped as he pulled back from Kelly. "I want my truck, I want one thing that's still mine!"

Kelly wasn't surprised by Matt's outburst, but he could tell from the rasping sigh that followed that Casey had immediately regretted it.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice thick with tears, "I'm sorry."

"It's alright, Matt," Kelly hugged him again, "I get it."

He could've afforded to replace his Camaro years before Hadley torched it, but he didn't, because it meant something to him, maybe not exactly what Casey's truck did, but he'd guess very similar.

"Come on," Kelly tried to move Casey towards the stoop, "Come on, Matt, let's go inside and...we'll figure this out."

"How long did you have that truck?" Kelly asked Casey later that night when the two of them were in bed, trying to sleep and getting nowhere fast.

"15 years, why?" Casey asked.

"And how many miles did you put on it in that time?"

"There's still no reason it should be beyond all hope," Casey replied, "It hasn't been that long."

"Yeah, I know..." Kelly said, "but at least nobody set it on fire, or stole it and totaled it."

Casey got quiet at that, and after a pause he responded, "I know...I still don't want to give it up."

"I know you don't," Kelly replied, "but Matt, it's at the point there's water in the oil, one day it's just going to quit on you and you could get killed if that happens on the highway, the freeway, in any intersection."

"I know," Casey replied with a small whine. "But I'm still not ready to give it up."

"I know," Kelly said. "But until we find you a new one, you're gonna be riding with me."

Casey let out a small whining moan at that announcement, it made Kelly laugh.

"You found the right truck once, you'll find the right one again," he told his friend.

From the other side of the bed he heard a sigh, and a more pronounced whine as Casey responded, "It's still not fair."

"I know it's not," Kelly replied, "but it'll be okay."

"What do you think?" Casey asked as he brought the truck to a stop after turning the corner.

Kelly leaned back in the passenger seat and shook his head, "It's whatever you want to do, you're gonna be driving it every day." He had to admit it did ride smooth and it was in much better shape in and out than Casey's pickup, but he wasn't about to mention any of that. He had, however, caught Casey grinning several times during the test drive, a vast improvement over the last three trucks they'd tried out over the past week.

"I like it," Casey said as he rapped on the steering wheel with both hands, "I'm gonna get it."

"How much they asking?" Kelly asked.

"I can afford it," Casey said.

"I'm sure you can, how much they asking?"

"More than I paid for the last one," Casey answered.

"Well prices have gone up since then," Kelly commented.

Casey reached over and elbowed him in his side with a small chuckle.

"This just feels right, Kelly," he said, running his hands over the steering wheel again. "It's just like the last time."

"Then get it," Kelly said. "You've busted your ass your whole life, you should have what you want."

"Yeah..." Casey said absently, lost in his thoughts.