Casey slammed the door on his pickup as he looked at the apartment where Cruz and Brett and Otis had been staying. After last night he'd thought it necessary to pay them a visit but he honestly had no idea what he was going to say, for that matter he wasn't sure if they were home, or if they were already in bed, all the lights were out, but he felt he'd come too far to turn back now. He'd just started up to the sidewalk when he passed by Brett's car and something caught his eye. He peered in the driver side window and his eyes doubled in size at what he saw, and he pounded on the glass.
A dark form spread across the front seat jumped at the sound and Sylvie sat up and opened the door. "Matt...what're you doing here?"
"Sylvie, what the hell are you doing out here?" Casey asked her.
Brett looked tired, but aware. With only a second's pause to remember where she was, she nodded towards the building and said, "I can't stay in there, it's too...big, it's just too empty, everywhere I turn, everything reminds me of Otis."
"You can't sleep in your car!" Matt told her.
"Well I can't stay in there either," the blonde woman replied, "so what other choice do I have?"
"Isn't there someone you could stay with?" Casey asked.
Sylvie shook her head, "No, aside from Joe and Brian, and everybody else at 51, the rest of my friends are back home in Iowa. There's nowhere I can go."
"Yes there is," Casey responded, acting on a blind impulse instead of actually thinking about what he was saying, "come back with me, I'm sure Kidd and Severide won't mind."
The fatigued paramedic's mouth slightly dropped open as if she couldn't make sense of what he was telling her. Through half closed eyes she looked at him and asked, "Are you sure? I don't want to put anybody out."
"Well we're kind of running out of room now that Kidd's moved in," Casey said, "but I'm sure we can fix the couch up, if you don't mind."
"Mind? That's the best offer I've had all day," Sylvie said as she swung her door shut. "What are you doing here anyway, Casey?"
"I came to...see how you and Cruz were doing."
"He's out with Chloe," Sylvie explained as they went over to his truck. "She broke off their engagement last week."
Casey did a double take. "What?"
"She said...after what happened at the factory...she couldn't marry someone who the same thing could happen to, and live with the constant worry Joe would die on the job."
This was all news to Casey. "So what happened?"
"Well..." Sylvie tiredly shrugged as she put her seat belt on, "I tried to talk some sense into her...and I think the engagement's back on...I think they went out tonight to test the waters...and...you know...so neither of them's actually alone right now."
"Probably a good idea," Casey said as he did a U-turn and headed back for Severide's apartment.
They drove along in silence for a minute before Brett said, "Matt...I miss Brian."
Casey nodded, "I know, I do too."
Sylvie shook her head, "Nothing's going to be the same without him."
"I know."
"It's not going to feel right going in to 51 and he's not there."
Casey nodded again, feeling himself blinking back tears as the reality of their new situation at the station house hit him, "I know...we always have to adapt, we lose one of our own, we get another one..."
"I don't want another one," Sylvie said.
Maybe it was what she said, or maybe it was how she said it, but either way her response got half a smile out of the Truck captain. "I know, I don't either...but we don't have a choice...we have to keep our companies full so we can work efficiently to save people."
"Matt..." the blonde woman looked at him and asked, "Was it like this when I came in? After that other paramedic died, Leslie?"
Casey looked at her for a few seconds, then finally answered, "It was hard...it was harder when we found out the explosion was deliberate and she was murdered...but I honestly don't remember it being this bad."
Kelly rolled over in the bed and saw that Stella was still sound asleep. Good for her, he was not, and honestly didn't know if he'd get back to sleep. He crept out of the bed and padded out to the kitchen. His first thought was to make a batch of coffee since he figured he'd be up the rest of the night, but he didn't have the energy for that, so he went over to the fridge, dug out a beer, cracked it open, and went to the living room to watch TV. He knew the layout of the apartment like the back of his hand, he didn't need to turn on any lights to see where he was going. He went over to the couch and parked himself on it.
Then the couch screamed.
Before Kelly even knew what was going on he'd fallen on the floor and was yelling in response to someone or something screaming in the dark, his heart was pounding hard enough in his chest he could hear it in his ears.
"Kelly?" Stella's voice boomed through the apartment as she came running out of the bedroom and felt for the light switch, "What's going on?" The lights came on and the first thing she saw was Kelly and Sylvie huddled together on the floor and Stella screamed at the sheer shock of it, worst cases scenario already flashing in her mind.
"What the hell is going on?" Casey demanded to know as he came out of his room and joined the rest of them in the living room.
As Kelly got to his feet and Matt helped Sylvie stand up, everybody started talking over one another at the exact same time, Casey raised his hands and commanded the whole room's attention by screaming at them, "SHUUUUT UP!" Everybody went silent, and Matt felt mildly impressed by this result. "Now," he added calmly, "One at a time...Brett, what happened?"
"Kelly sat on me," she answered.
"I didn't know she was there! She scared the hell out of me. What's she doing here?" Kelly asked.
"When'd you get here?" Stella added.
"I came back with Matt," Sylvie answered.
"What?"
"When was that?" Kelly asked.
Casey looked to the clock and answered, "About four hours ago, I figured you two were out."
"No," Stella answered with a sigh, "we turned in early." She looked at Sylvie and asked her, "What're you doing here? What's going on?"
"Nothing," Brett remarked, "I just had to get out of that apartment...but I didn't want to put anybody out, I can just go."
"No," Stella told her, "you're not going anywhere, it's after 2 in the morning."
"Well this clearly isn't going to work out," Sylvie said, "I about got my spine snapped like a potato chip."
"I'm sorry!" Kelly defensively replied.
The four of them stood a couple feet apart from each other and looked around at one another in a sudden silence, which was promptly broken when a combined laugh/snort came up through Sylvie's nose, which set off a chain reaction of everybody else laughing at the current situation. It was the first time any of them had laughed in over a week, it was definitely needed.
"Are you okay?" Stella asked Brett.
"Uh, yeah, just now I know how a loveseat feels," the blonde woman replied.
"Okay, I don't think anybody's going back to sleep after that," Kidd responded.
"Well, I'll get some coffee made," Kelly said, feeling a newfound burst of energy that definitely hadn't been there five minutes ago.
"None of that hazelnut stuff Kidd's always making," Casey told him.
Sylvie slowly realized that it was morning and she was in bed. Whose bed she wasn't sure, she had no memory of going home. For that matter she didn't remember much from last night. Her tongue was thick and felt like leather and she tasted linen, opening her eyes she saw the sun starting to pour in the window, and looked around and didn't recognize the room she was in. She tried to remember who she'd been with last night.
"Matt?" she called out uncertainly.
The door opened and Casey stood in the doorway, "Everything okay?"
Sylvie's eyes roamed left and right, trying to figure out whose room she was in. "Where am I?" she asked cautiously.
Instead of answering, all Casey said to her was, "You gotta see this," and nodded his head towards the living room.
Brett got off the bed and her legs felt weak as she walked over towards the door, she looked where Casey was looking and did a double take at the sight of Severide and Kidd asleep on opposite ends of the couch, Severide every so often grimacing in his sleep in response to Stella's feet shoved in his face.
"What happened last night?" Sylvie asked.
Casey shrugged, "Beats me, I woke up in my room on the floor. How're you doing?"
"Uh..." she paused for a moment to try to remember, "Okay...I think." She looked at the blonde man as something occurred to her, "Ummm...this is..."
Casey nodded in understanding. This was their first shift since the funeral...the first real shift they'd be working since the warehouse fire. He wasn't sure anybody was up to it, but he knew they had to.