Hi guys, just a quick one to say thank you for all the recent reviews, follows and likes on this story they really do mean a lot to me.

Buckle in guys because this ones heavy, like really heavy. Hope you like it, if you do drop me a little comment if you can :)

Stella ran along the Fullerton and Lake trail with Kelly alongside her. She had expressed a need for a proper workout today, the two driving the short distance to this spot before heading out for the eighteen mile round trip, she was hoping her attempts to fully wear herself out would help her to get a better nights sleep. The woman having a hard time getting any in the two days that had passed since the person at their back door.

They were currently coming up on mile ten and she was starting to feel the fatigue kicking in now as she struggled to keep up with her friend.

"Kelly" she panted, "Kelly I'm done." She stopped in her tracks, her hands on her knees as she tried to take in deep breaths. She was used to running long distances but not back to back, and with her impromptu thirteen miles the other day, mixed together with the sheer lack of sleep she'd been getting she wasn't sure she could continue.

"Come on you've got more in you then that haven't you?" He teased jogging back to her side.

"I don't think I have." She said shaking her head, "my legs feel like jelly. Can we just walk for a bit?"

"Sure we can do that if you want." He told her bringing his jog down to a complete stop. "Do you need a minute?"

"No I'm good, as long as we don't power walk." She smiled, her arm linking into his. "Can we talk?" She asked.

"You know we can. What's on your mind?"

"A bit of everything" she answered honestly, "I just, I've been thinking a lot about the other night, how I withheld the note from you."

Kelly nodded to tell her to continue, Stella having his complete attention.

"I knew I should have told you straight away and honestly I think I know why I didn't but it's not really an excuse." She took a deep breath. "There's something I didn't tell you, something about my past. Something about mine and Grants days together.."

"Okay" Kelly said, his spine straightening at the sound of the mans name on her lips. "What is it?"

"Nothing good"

"Maybe not, but I'd still like to know if it's something that's bothering you."

"It is..." she responded a gentle sigh leaving her lips before she began speaking again. "Grant well he could use it against me if he wanted to. He could get me in some real trouble."

"Stella you're scaring me, what happened?"

Stella took another huge in take of breath, she knew if she didn't say something and it came out it could ruin everything. In truth even her telling him could ruin everything. What she was admitting to, it was big, bigger than everything else. And with her statements to the police about the night she'd got the slash to her face, the night that Grant had trashed the apartment in his blind rage, she knew it was another nail in her coffin, one she couldn't get back out.

"When he first started with the oxy, we didn't haven't much spare cash around. He was taking almost triple the daily amount if not more at one point, we couldn't afford his habit, he'd burnt through all our savings and we were desperate. But one day Kelvin came round wanting his payment and we of course didn't have it, after a bit of back and forth he agreed to coming to a different arrangement. He offered us an out."

"What do you mean an out?"

"He said.. he said if I'd work for him he'd overlook the under payments we were making. You've got to understand I didn't have a choice. It was either this or he'd send his muscle in. And anything Grant had done to me would have been nothing compared to them."

"What type of work are we talking?" Kelly asked cautiously. "Selling drugs? Or.. or ..." he couldn't bring himself to ask his next question out lout, the thought of her doing that too much to bear.

"Not exactly.. they needed someone to move their product. Someone with a reputable job that would be met with little to no resistance if stopped" She began, her words slow and steady, her eyes focused on the path they were walking. She daren't look at him, the woman petrified of the reaction she would get from him if she did, so instead she just kept talking, kept detailing the times she'd driven the gear from point A to B to move them for Kelvin and his crew. "It happened a few times, I never thought it would work, honestly I thought I'd for sure be caught. But the minute they saw my CFD badge and shirt they didn't even stop me, just let me straight through the gate and so the next time they needed help I was enlisted into doing it again and again and again. In return Grant got his pills and we didn't have a visit from the muscle. But one day I told them I wasn't doing it anymore, I was fed up of being their driver, and I wasn't going to risk everything just so he could continue getting his hit."

"How did that go down?"

"Not well." She told him, the pained look that crossed her face telling him all he needed to know before the next words had even left her mouth. "Grant beat me, he almost put me in the hospital he beat me so hard. I'm pretty sure he cracked a few ribs that day. He was furious and he just kept screaming at me that I would drive the delivery and if I didn't I'd regret it, all the while he was raining down punches and kicks to my body. I was scared what he would do if I kept refusing so I did it." She paused gathering herself to tell the next bit of her story. "I was supposed to be dropping them off at a juvie centre, the guard on the gate he was in on it and would let me through, once I was in I needed to see another guard and he was who I did the transfers with. But I got pulled over a mile outside of the drop off point and I thought for sure I was toast. But I don't know if the cop was on Kelvins payroll and they were testing my loyalty or if he was just feeling sorry for me or what, I was pretty black and blue, you could see I'd been roughed up recently, it was so bad that I took a week off after it, told the chief I had the flu. The cop let me go without even searching the car and I never heard anything else about it. After that I told them that was it, I was out and I didn't care if they beat the shit out of me I wasn't doing it."

"What happened?"

"Kelvin said I was good, that the debt had been paid. Maybe he got spooked, or maybe the cop was a friend of his I don't know. All I know was that was the last time I ever had to make a delivery for them."

"And Grant kept getting his supply?"

"Yeah" she said glancing sideways at him, his face unreadable as she watched him digest her words. The two walking almost another mile in complete silence.

"Please say something?" She begged when the quiet became too much.

"What do you want me to say Stella?" He asked through a frustrated breath, "you know if he uses this against you, you're done for. You'll do jail time if he tells them before you do."

"I know."

"Why haven't you said anything before, Voight, I know he's complicated but you know he would help you. He'd protect you from this. So why haven't you said anything?"

"I was scared, I still am. I thought if you all knew what I'd done, to the extent I'd gone to help him get his hands on gear you'd all hate me as much as him... you'd all blame me just as much..." she barely whispered the last part, Kelly staring at her like what she had just said was a foreign language. The shock on his face telling her just how much her words affected him.

But before he could speak up and tell her what he was thinking she spoke her shaky voice barely audible while she tried to keep a grasp on her emotions.

"And like you said I could be looking at jail time, I knew what I was doing, I knew what the packages I couriered held. I was no better than the dealers. Hell I was a dealer in a sense."

"Yes but you were forced into it, you didn't have a choice. You were beaten until you'd take a load, that in itself goes for you rather than against."

"I'm not sure the CFD would see it like that. I could lose my job."

"I won't let that happen."

"Kelly you can't protect me from this, if it comes out I'm done. My career, my life as I know it, it's over."

Severide stopped suddenly, the man moving his body in front of hers. "Look at me, I won't let that happen. You were made to do this, you didn't have a choice. This wasn't you wanting to help them, this was them forcing you."

"You think a judge will see it like that?"

He sighed before responding "I don't know, but I know Antonio and Voight will. That Matt and Gabby will, that I do."

"You can't tell Matt or Gabby!" She near shouted, the sudden loudness to her voice earning them a few glances from other park goers.

"Stella we don't have a choice, they need to know the full extent of Grants reach. And if he has these people in his pocket and I'd bet my right arm he does, then what if he sends them after you, after us. We're living in their home, we need to tell them."

"What if they hate me?" She asked, her tears flowing over as she began to cry. "What if they don't want me around anymore? I can't take anymore rejection by people I love please Kelly please."

"Hey hey" he said pulling her into his chest, "it's going to be okay, we're going to fix this. I'm happy you told me."

"And you.. you don't hate me?" She asked timidly, the uncertainty in her voice shattering his heart all over again. The way she repeatedly checked the things she told him hadn't changed his opinion of her spoke volumes, the way she repeatedly apologised for the actions of other people, for what they'd done to her or forced her to do. It told him everything he needed to know about how she'd been conditioned, how deep the hold that man still had on her both emotionally and physically.

He hated it, he hated how much she hated herself, how much she blamed herself for things that she couldn't have controlled. For things that were in no way her fault. The way she held back information in an attempt to protect those around her, that she thought by not telling them everything would somehow make this whole thing less real, less difficult. But he needed her to understand, she needed to be completely transparent. And nothing she could ever do would change his mind about how he felt about her, nothing would ever change the high opinion he had of her. Never.

"Stella baby look at me" he whispered in her ear. Her head slowly lifting from his chest to look up at him through her eyelids. "I could never hate you, none of this is your fault. You've done nothing wrong." She gave a short nod, her eyes swimming with unshed tears. "I need you to tell me now if there is anything else you're holding back. Is there anything else that happened before or has happened recently that you haven't mentioned? Is there anything at all no matter how small that Grant could use against you?"

"No" she whispered although her eyes didn't quite meet his gaze anymore.

"Are you sure? Nothing that happened before Grant?" He gently probed the man edging closer to the question that had been on the tip of his tongue for a few days now.

She said nothing, her head snuggling back into his chest as they stood in the cool breeze of the late March air. Her body tense to the touch as he heard her take a few sharp breaths but still she said nothing.

"The other night when we.. when we got a little carried away. You thanked me for listening to you." Kelly began, her body tensing even more in his arms. The energy coming off her body telling him that there was indeed more to her story than what she was saying, that something had indeed happened before Grant, that she maybe had suffered at another's hand. "I got the sense that maybe men haven't always respected you're decision? That maybe you've had more bad experiences than good?"

He paused waiting to see if she'd say anything, the firefighter moving them both towards a bench slowly as yet another set of joggers diverted around them. The man not wanting to be in anyone's way but also not wanting to lose the contact he had with her in this moment. He could feel how this topic was affecting her, her entire body was telling him there was some truth in the questions he had presented. That on some level he had been right in what all he had been thinking recently.

"You don't need to tell me the details, not if you don't want to. But has.. has what Grant did has that happened before?"

Her teary eyes glanced up at him through her eyelids, her eyes that held so much sadness. More sadness than he ever wanted to see from her, a sadness that he hoped over time he could replace with love and comfort, warmth and passion. She still hadn't said anything, but she really didn't have to. Kelly could see that he was right, that she had been hurt in some way before her marriage, maybe even during. He didn't know, all he knew was that of what he suspected. And his own thoughts weren't comforting or pleasant, all the scenarios in which she could have been hurt, all the images of the different things that may or may not have been done to her were terrifying and heartbreaking.

"Have you ever had a decent relationship?" He asked his own voice beginning to crack.

She shook her head, the action causing a pain to shoot across his chest. The action that confirmed his suspicions cutting through him like knife in the chest.

"Not one?" He asked, "never?"

"No" she whispered, "not really. I've only had three men in my life, one of those I was never in a relationship with. He was... well he came round a lot when I was younger.." she cut herself off the topic causing her anxiety to skyrocket. The painful memories of her teenage years shooting through her mind, the images of all that had happened replaying like a movie in her mind. "We had a family friend, his son was the same age as me" she began, he eyes focused down at the ground as she spoke. "We fooled around a bit to begin with, we were both curious as to what it felt like. So one day we decided to you know.. but half way through I second guessed what we were doing. He stopped straight away" she clarified when she felt Kelly's body tense beside her. "But afterwards he called me a tease, said I was a.. a.. 'fucking cock tease' and I knew what I was doing that 'just because I was hot didn't mean I could fuck him over.' So I.. I went through with it. I didn't want to make him feel bad and it wasn't that bad really. After that we slept together a few times, it was almost always on his terms.. but yeah it wasn't a relationship and he never treated me right not really."

"I'm sorry Stella" Kelly murmured the man desperately trying to keep his tears behind his eyes even while they threatened to fall. "That must not have been easy."

"It wasn't but like I said it wasn't bad. But it kinda desensitised me to sex. I didn't see it as a love making process until I met Grant a year later. He was sweet and kind. And we hit it off right away. But we were both into things we shouldn't have been. We drank and smoked a lot.. I suspected he'd dabbled in some other things but I never questioned it. It didn't really matter to me. Not back then."

"How old were you when you met Grant?"

"We were both seventeen, still pretty young really."

"So you were with him a long time?"

"Yeah he was, I mean he is the only relationship I've truly had. I had a fling when I was twenty, we'd broken up after a fight..."

"He hit you before you were married?" Kelly said suddenly cutting off her words, the man remembering that she had told him the first time had been a couple of years previously.

"No" she replied firmly, "just a normal fight, we'd been out and both had a few too many. He'd been.. well I'm actually not sure if he did or didn't but I suspected he'd done coke with his mates and I kicked off. I was all for a couple of smokes now and again but I wasn't into the hardcore stuff and I wasn't going to put up with it, not then anyway."

"So you got into it and what left?"

"I told him I wasn't going to be with someone that did the hardcore stuff and he needed to grow up and wake up. I told him that when he had got his act together then contact me and we could see where we were at. I moved back in with my parents for a while and started dating this guy. I'd cleaned up my own act and started attending church again, well he was super religious and well our relationship was okay but it was never amazing. We didn't last very long and afterwards some photos arrived at my house, they were meant for my mum but I saw the writing and the envelope. It was his hand writing, the guy from church.. he'd got a camera in his room and had videoed us together, he'd taken screenshots of me in some really uncompromising positions, positions that a nice christian mother would be furious at. I destroyed them and never heard from him again, we stopped seeing him at church and then I heard from a friend of mine that he'd gone to jail. Apparently when he was with me, I wasn't the only person he was seeing. He got done for sleeping with a minor."

"So he's in prison?"

"He was.. he got killed six months into his sentence."

Kelly released a breath, the mans emotions starting to get the better of him. "I'm sorry Stella, I'm sorry that every man you've ever got with has done something to hurt you. You don't deserve everything that has been done to you, no one deserves that."

The two of them sat in silence for a while, tears streaming down both of their faces as they held on to each other. Kelly didn't understand how someone as wonderful, and kind, as caring and remarkable as Stella could have been dealt so many bad hands. All he knew right now was he was going to show her how she should be treated, he was going to prove to her that she was worth so much more than the men she had associated herself with over the years. He couldn't right the wrongs that had been done to her but he could sure as hell make up for them and he knew now more than ever that he was going to be the kind of man she deserved, the kind of man that made her believe that she was worth everything because to him she was.

"Is that everything?" he asked after a short time, he knew she probably had told him everything now but with the history of the past few weeks alone playing in his head he had to make sure, he had to hear her say it out loud.

"Yes, you now know my entire fucked up history. I won't blame you if you want to run for the hills, I'm a complete fuck up and you could do so much better than me."

"Stella, I don't want anyone but you and I will wait forever if I have to and if I have to tell you everyday how much you are worth I will. Because Stella you are worth so much more than what you have had, so so much more. I love you for everything you have, for everything that you are and who you have been. Nobody's life comes without baggage not when you get to our age, I have my fair share too. But I don't care about anything you've done before, I don't care who you were when you were a teenager or the decisions you made. I don't care that right now you think you're damaged beyond repair because to me you are beautiful, inside and out. Warts and all."

The minute he finished speaking her lips were on his, the sudden action catching him off guard, his mind having to take a beat before his body reacted, the two of them completely lost in a deep kiss. Kelly's hand rubbed up her back towards her head, the man holding her there as he ravished her lips with his. It wasn't until they needed air that they parted, the two of them sucking in much needed oxygen to their lungs, while they smiled lazily at each other.

"Thank you" she murmured against him, their foreheads still touching as they got lost in the moment together.

"What for?"

"Being here, for being you, for not hating me." She spoke so quietly he had to strain to hear her over the noises of the park around.

"I'm not going anywhere baby. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Me and you are in this together, forever."

Stella chuckled a wet chuckle, more tears streaming down her face, only this time they weren't full of sorrow or sadness but a hint of happiness, a hint of safety and comfort. "When did you get so good at saying the right thing?"

"Lots of practise." He joked, the two laughing lightly together.

The apartment was next to silent as the afternoon wore on, Stella was in the kitchen busy making some lunch while Kelly showered. Matt was out on a construction job and Gabby had taken the early shift at Molly's the woman having to leave a bit earlier than usual to receive a delivery.

Ever since their talk earlier she'd been going over everything, everything that had happened to her over the years, all the decisions she'd made. Good and bad. All of the decisions that had lead to her being here in this moment, some of them were her choices, some of them she'd been led to by others but most of them, most of them had been because of him. Because of decisions he made, usually the ones he'd made for himself with no thought or care as to what that meant for her. And the more she thought about it the more she hated him for it.

It was true Grant had been a huge focal point in her life, the decisions and direction he'd taken had always almost led her down the same path. The drinking, partying, even the smoking that had all been choices he'd made and she'd gone along with. She'd never really made her own choices, not since she met him. Not in the ten plus years since he'd walked into her life. The naive and impressionable seventeen year old her being completely captivated by the bad boy on the motorcycle.

He was exactly the type of boy her father had warned her about, exactly the person he'd always said to keep away from but she'd run willingly into his arms. She'd allowed herself to be swept up by him and his ways. And at the time she never gave it a thought, she never really stopped to see what his choices meant for her. Even as an adult, after she'd stopped the partying, stopped the drinking and the smoking, even then she had still done what he wanted, put his choices and needs before her own. The only thing she'd ever chosen for herself was to become a firefighter, to pursue the dream she'd had since being a little girl and he'd almost taken that away from her. Damn he may still be able to take it away from her.

If she went to the police and told them everything she'd told Kelly today, she had no idea what would happen. She knew in reality that Voight and Dawson would do whatever they could to stop it coming back on her and ruining her life. She knew that Hank Voight was exactly the man for the job to make this go away but she also knew if she did that, if she allowed him to take the heat away from her that she'd be going down a path she may not ever come back from. It wasn't that she wanted to face the music on it, because if she was truly honest she didn't, she didn't want to ever admit to her part in the movement of drugs across their great city. But she also knew that she needed to. She needed to be held accountable for her actions, for the times she had helped them. But what did that mean for her? What did that mean for her job?

"Stella" his voice cut through her thoughts, the woman jumping almost out of her skin when it reached her ears, the pan she'd been cooking in almost tumbling to the ground as she came back to the world around her. "Sorry I didn't mean to make you jump." He added quickly, rushing round to help her steady the hot dish.

"It's okay, I wasn't really paying attention. What did you say?"

"I asked if you were alright?" He said taking in her exhausted features, her eyes red and puffy from the tears she hadn't even realised she'd been shedding, the defeated look in her eyes telling him something was on her mind. "You seemed pretty out of it."

"Yeah sorry I was just thinking."

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked rubbing his hands across her shoulders and neck. The man having come to stand directly behind her during their short conversation.

She nodded her head as a low groan left her lips, Kelly having just hit a rather large knot in her shoulder, the firefighter working his hands into it to help relieve the tension she was holding there. "I was just thinking more about what we talked about at the park really. How I have let men dictate my life for me, well one man really. Grant and I were together for over ten years on and off. The two of us may have only been married a few years but we were always each other's even when we weren't a couple. We were good until we weren't and then we'd break up and before long we'd be back in each other's arms again. And it only turned really sour after we got married, but he'd always had this possessiveness over me, this hold almost, I don't even know what it was that kept me running back to him. After we got married it got worse, that's when he started putting me down a lot, when he started saying things. He just always had this nack, this capability of getting me to do things with him, for him without thinking about the consequences. If he told me to jump I'd ask him how high, always have. I don't know why really. I don't know why I let him control and dictate to me for so long. But I did. And now everything that's happened these past few weeks. Everything that has happened since the first time he ever hit me it's led me here."

She wasn't sure she was making much sense, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them. Her jumbled thoughts finally being spoken out loud. The mental battle she had been locked in with herself over the past few weeks finally being aired. She wasn't even sure why she was telling him all this, or why he even cared. All she knew was that if she didn't say what was on her mind it was going to continue eating away at her until maybe there was nothing left.

"I'm sorry, I don't even know if that makes sense to you. It's just..."

"You're trying to work out when you stopped living for you and became part of him, part of his decisions?" Kelly finished for her, the man understanding more of what she was trying to express than he was even sure she did. He'd seen this type of behaviour before, a woman who'd given her everything to a man that was determined to destroy it. Only this time the woman in front of him was beginning to see it. She was beginning to see the damage and destruction Grant had done to her life, was still continuing to do if she kept her secrets close.

"I get it Stella I do. Probably more than you actually know, I've seen what a destructive man can do to a... for lack of a better word impressionable and broken woman. You were already suffering before he came into your life, and I'd bet my right arm that he saw it and knew he could manipulate you. Mould you into this person he could use for his own benefit."

"I want to tell Voight." She said suddenly, her words not ringing clearly to him at first. The man having to ask her to repeat them once again so he could be absolutely certain he'd heard what she'd said.

"Pardon?"

"I want to tell Voight" she said again, her voice firm and steady as she spun round in his grip. "I need to tell him this, need to tell him about the delivery's, about everything that went on between me and the dealers. I know that we don't know what will happen when I do, but it's about time I start taking charge of my life. About time I start to allow myself to be honest and truthfully with people about the things I went through, the things he put me through. No more hiding, no more keeping secrets. This is my life and I'm taking charge of it again."

Kelly didn't know what to say, her determination and sudden strength throwing him completely as he digested all she had said. He was proud of her, the way she was dealing with this, with all of it, he was so proud of her. And he was going to tell her that, he was going to give her every reassurance and every ounce of support she needed while she went through this.

He knew that going to the police and telling them she played a part in the distribution of drugs was going to be hard. The conversation in the park being a difficult enough one already, but he knew that actually taking that information to the police and freely giving it to them was going to be harder. She was right they didn't know what was going to happen. They had no idea if the intelligence unit, well more Voight, but if they could protect her from what her confession could bring down upon her. And truthfully the thought made him feel sick. The thought that she could lose everything over something she had no choice in, and that those decisions she had to make to survive were the one thing that could keep them apart. That was not something he could or would focus on at the moment. For now all he could do was support her and stand beside her as she dealt with everything this next part was going to bring.

"Okay, I'll call Antonio tell him we will go into the station tomorrow and I'll be right beside you while you do this. I promise you I am not going anywhere."

"Thank you" Stella said quietly her hands dropping from their position against his chest, "but this is something I need to do alone. You can't have any part in this Kelly, I don't want you getting into trouble for knowing about this."

"Stella..."

"No!" She said firmly stepping backwards and putting some distance between them. "No! If you come with me and they find out you knew, if Grant finds out. I won't put you in harms way Kelly, I won't do it."

"Stella, you aren't going through this alone. Let me worry about me, you worry about speaking to the police and telling them the truth. I'll do everything else."

She shook her head "but what if they try to silence me.. I could bring them down I know all their players, what if they use you.. what if they hurt you to get me to be quiet."

"If they are going to leverage me they will do it either way" he told her, and although she knew he was right. She knew that it really didn't matter what he knew and what he didn't, if the gang wanted to silence her and use him to achieve that they would. It would make no difference if he was there when she gave her statement or not. But she also knew she couldn't lose him, and it was that last bit that was making her hesitate.

"I can't lose you Kelly" she barely whispered.

"I can't lose you either. But you aren't going through this alone, you can fight me all the way but I won't back down. Not until you agree to me helping you, not until you realise you don't have to do everything yourself. You're no longer alone Stella, you have people, so many people and we are all wanting to help. That's all we want, we want you safe and well and happy. And we want to help anyway we can. I want to help please let me help you."

She stood stunned to silence for a few moments, it wasn't that what he said surprised her because it didn't. If she had learnt anything over the past few weeks it was that she had more friends that had become family than she had real family. That the people she worked with were in actual fact the people she could relay on wholeheartedly inside and outside of the firehouse. That despite everything she had ever been told she was worth something to someone, to the person in front of her she was worth everything no matter what. She was worth everything to him, and he to her.

"Okay." She murmured the single word bringing a small smile to his face. Kelly closing the gap she'd put between them as he wrapped her up in an enormous hug. The man gently kissing her head repeatedly as he conveyed to her through his body just how much that little sign of acceptance meant to him. It wasn't much really, but to him, to them it was everything. It was the door opening, it was the beginning of the road. The road that was going to led her out of this, the road that was going to help repair the broken parts that had been left behind by almost a decade of abuse and manipulation.

"I love you" he whispered to her, his hand stroking through her soft curls. "So so much. And I'm so proud of you."

"I love you too." She whispered back.

The two of them standing in the kitchen together just holding onto the others body. Their silence speaking louder than any words ever could.

"So what happens now?" Stella asked quietly, the firefighter bringing her hands to sit in her lap.

It was just after lunch the next day and the two firefighters had been at the twenty first district for a little over two hours, Stella agreeing to inform the unit on the deliveries she'd been all but forced to make for the dealers Grant was involved with.

When they had arrived at the station she had been ushered into one of the interrogation rooms by Antonio before being left there a little while and although she had known it to be normal practise the whole thing had filled her with nerves. The young woman still not being able to shake what could happen after she gave her statement. Telling them what she had done was easy enough, the story being one she had already told twice over the past twenty four hours. Stella and Kelly sitting down with the couple who's home they were currently crashing in the night before after they had both got home. And although the conversation had gone a lot better than she had ever expected she had still struggled to sleep and when she did she'd been taunted by dreams of her behind bars. Images of her in orange jumpsuits filling her head as she tried to get some rest and if it wasn't those dreams keeping her awake, it was dreams of her friends being hurt to get at her, or her mind replaying the countless beatings she had taken over the years.

It had been a long night and an even longer morning, the brunette barely speaking to anyone as she'd got herself ready for the day and although they had all tried to lighten the mood surrounding her, everyone had come up blank with ways to make her feel better. They all knew she was nervous, that she was unsure how the interview at the station was going to go and if they were all truthfully honest none of them knew either. When Kelly had spoken with Antonio the night before he had scouted over the reason she needed to speak to them again. The firefighter giving only the bare basics knowing that if he revealed too much before she had chance to recount it for them they may have formed their own opinions. And although Antonio had been understanding, Kelly had soon realised that the unit must have already known some of what she was coming into say by the looks she had received entering the prescient those few short hours ago.

"Well we need to clarify your story, speak to the people involved and see how much they are willing to admit to." Sergeant Voight spoke carefully.

"You don't believe me?" she asked, hurt by the pure implication that she would have willingly put drugs on the street.

"I do believe you, but it is also my job to check the facts and to clarify everything you've just told me."

She gave a short nod, her eyes tracing towards Antonio and Kelly, the two men sitting of to the side of the table both sharing an equally worried glance.

"Will she be charged?" Kelly asked, looking over at her sideways, his voice unable to hide the worry his mind was holding.

"I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn't happen."

"But what if you can't, what if this comes out? Could Grant use it against her?"

Voight took a deep breath, he could see how worried his detective was and he could see how worried the squad lieutenant was, unfortunately for both of them he didn't have the answers they wanted right now. They were right to worry, if this came out in trial Stella could face prosecution and there was no telling how a jury would find her but at the same time he knew he had pull around the city, and he knew that this woman before him had completely been forced into doing this. He knew her well enough to know that she hadn't just made everything up to protect herself and he knew that if the circumstances had been in anyway different she would have never helped them. She only did because she feared for her life and if recent events were anything to go by those fears had been more than warranted.

"First of all we have no proof at all that Grant is actually alive. If he is, then yes he could try to use this against her in the divorce and when on trial, but I will not let him drag her down. Stella I will not allow this man to ruin your life, not now, not ever. I will keep this between us four until the very end, but I need you to do the same. I need to know everyone you have confided this to and everyone involved I need the names of anyone who saw you do the deliveries, everyone that you know to involved."

"Gabby and Matt know, I told them last night but I haven't told anyone else. I was hoping I'd never have to disclose it to anyone but the guilt it was eating me up and I couldn't hide it anymore. I'm tried of hiding things, tried of choices that were made for me weighing me down and clouding my life. I just want to be free of it all."

"I understand that and you did the right thing in coming to us. We can protect you Stella, now that we know what they forced you to do we can protect you. I just need you to be completely honest with me about everything, from this moment on, no little detail is kept from us okay?"

"It won't" she readily agreed, "I know now that the only way to beat Grant is to let people know exactly what he did."

Voight gave her a nod of agreement, the sergeant knowing there was nothing else for him to say on the matter, not now at least. It didn't take long for Stella to list the people she had come into contact with over the time she had been involved with the crew. Hank thanking her for coming in, and telling her to call if she needed anything.

"I'm so proud of you Stella" Kelly told her the minute they were alone, the two taking a few minutes before gathering their stuff up to leave. "I know that can't have been easy, that none of this has been easy. But it's out in the open now, we can get in front of it and we will beat this and him. Grant isn't going to rule your life anymore."

"Thank you" Stella said, flashing him a small smile, the events of the day so far clearly taking their toll on her.

"Let's go home shall we?" He asked offering her his hand.

"Please."

The two of them left the room hand in hand, the unofficial couple walking back through intelligence and down the stairs towards the exit of the precedent. A comfortable silence sat in the air around them, a sense of relief and weightlessness coming from the confessions that had just been made and although they were still unsure what the future held they were more than happy to live in the moment for now.