AN: Oh look its almost Friday the 13th and this is chapter 13. That was seriously not intentional but here we are. An action packed chapter this go round. Thanks to all you readers!

Something was off. Dawson sensed it in the air. Spring revealed itself in Otis' allergies and near daily downpours if not thunderstorms. It was currently sheeting rain and the firehouse was quiet as hell. Mouch and Hermann were arguing over the Scrabble board and Shay was restocking the rig while Dawson checked through the paperwork from their last shift and Tara was chatting with Cruz and Otis asking about Severide and what happened to him and clearly none of you like Campbell what gives?

Tara was oddly earnest in her desire to be a paramedic for someone who froze every time more than an ounce of blood appeared in front of her. Even Mills was looking at her askance and Mills practically wrote the book on eager puppy dog sincerity. Perhaps it was who she was asking about that was making everyone tense. Maybe that's what was off. Severide being absent still felt strange was she hoped, going to continue to feel strange right up until he strolled back into the break room.

'I mean. Don't you guys visit him?" Tara persisted.

Tara was looking for a Shay rant special it seemed. Dawson rolled her eyes and focused on her paperwork. Of course people visited Severide. He was missed but he was also a pissy motherfucker who resented being vulnerable so people usually waited until he reached out to descend on his trifling butt.

"Hey Dawson, can i talk to you for a minute?"

Dawson glanced up to see Shay hovering over the table, her eye twitching, feet shuffling side to side. She'd heard Tara clearly.

"Yeah, sure" Dawson bounded out of the break room. Happy to escape the awkwardness of the break room, even if it veered her into the path of more awkwardness. She and Shay were better but not perfect. On one level, Dawson didn't see why the situation should be a big deal because Shay told her about Severide's escapades all the time. With delight and exasperation but no hint of judgement. She hadn't really discussed Severide with Shay past that one sobbing mess of a conversation in the hospital and the short stilted updates she occasionally offered thereafter. But it was clear that Shay did not approve and it left Dawson feeling all sorts of wrong footed with her partner. She sat on top of the washing machine and waited for Shay to talk, hands under her thighs to keep from fidgeting.

"So…"

"So?" Dawson prodded. It was obvious that Shay did not want to be doing this.

"Kelly wants more brownies."

"Oh. Okay?"

"He's been whining about how I ate all of them and that's not fair cuz he's the one who might have a permanent limp and blah blah you get the picture."

Dawson did of course. Before Severide stopped texting he'd been making idle comments about her brownies and how they reminded him of his mom's which Dawson was pretty sure was a line because it usually segued into you should come over and bake some. Plus she seriously doubted Severide's mom used anything close to the combination of ingredients she concocted for her recipe.

Dawson waited for Shay to say more. For an opening in the wall that Shay had put up since she'd found out about her sleeping with Kelly. She'd always stopped shorted of apologizing because, well, she wasn't doing anything wrong. As anxious as the entire thing made her feel sometimes, sleeping with Kelly was a window into his personality that surprised and overwhelmed her. She clenched her thighs together just thinking about it. Severide fucked like he lived, with intensity and fervor. It was both oblivion and searing focus. It was always lights on, eyes open, by turns tender and calamitous, each egging the other on and she was only sorry she'd stopped before the edge had burnt off of their chemistry. She wanted Shay back. She wanted it all but she knew she couldn't, didn't deserve more. She was all wasted opportunities and unforced errors in judgement.

"I'm not mad at you Dawson" Shay whispered finally. "It's just a lot to process. I guess I thought of you guys as different satellites connected through me because of our separate friendships but you and Kel created your own little shortcut in circuitry" Shay laughed at her own small joke while Dawson just looked at her. It wasn't like she expected this to be easy. Adjusting to intimacy with Kelly had gone about as smoothly as a busy day at the firehouse. She'd railed against him more than once in the beginning, before she even knew it was a beginning and he'd let her. A man not known for his patience had propped the pillows up behind him on her bed and let her figure her shit out with a half-smile and sleepy eyes because he just seemed to get it. She could do no less for Shay. Dawson leapt down from the washing machine to pull the blonde into her embrace.

"I get it Shay. Let's just get him better. It's okay. It's over. " as she hug rocked the smaller woman in her arms.

"Is it though?" Shay countered. She didn't see Dawson's face slip into consternation. The rain continued to fall outside. The wind began to howl and blow.

And Boden was failing. He approached Mills the way he would any other candidate who had been insubordinate and that was a mistake. Thunder clapped loudly outside. A lightning strike lit up his window. It was late evening and he thought he was prepared for the sort of insolence all cocky upstarts had when they were first on the job and feeling invincible. But Mills' insolence was masked by a deep sense of betrayal and his silence told Boden that Mills knew more than he'd ever wished the young man to discover. Boden leaned back in his desk chair while Mills continued to blink in front of him.

"I'm not sure what you want sir"

"An explanation"

"Of what?"

And this was where Boden got himself caught. Strictly speaking, Mills's personal life was not his purview. It wasn't interfering with his work. To the contrary, his diligence to the tasks assigned had sharpened in the past few weeks. Whether that was the result of his separation from paramedic in charge Dawson or the animus he seemed to seethe like air around his mother and now him, was anyone's guess. The question now was whether he should be direct or elliptical in his approach. He didn't want to accidentally reveal more than he already knew. Mills was not a terribly violent person except for that one punch at Benny. If it were up to him, Mills could have kept going, no repercussions, but Benny was revered in CFD and Mills was the son of a firefighter whose death and history was understood on the oblique. In the subterfuge he had wrought for Mills' own good. Boden focused in on the sulky candidate with a near growl in his tone.

"Do not play me for a fool. I —"

Truck 81. Squad 3. Ambulance 61. Multiple vehicle accident. 928. N. Leavitt Street. Boden and Mills both leapt up. It was too wet to be a fire which meant Squad would be primary but they both rushed for their turnout gear regardless. Boden knew that side of town fairly well. It was poorer, close to the infamous Lapthrop Homes. He hoped the scene was contained by the time they arrived as he watched Capp and the rest of the rescue squad climb into their truck, already raring to go.

Except it was chaos. The accident was actually three separate accidents: one car in the river, a truck over the side headfirst onto N. Leavitt Street while a five car pileup ranged over N. Damen Avenue bridge. Gridlock in both directions. No direct access to any of the victims. A nightmare: the sleeting rain, the pitch black night, the sounds of all the groaning machinery. Friday night. Alcohol or exhaustion? No one was sure of the cause yet but Tara stood, half bent over in the back of the ambulance as Shay and Dawson opened the doors to rain and carnage. It had taken thirty minutes to get there already through traffic. One other ambulance was on scene and police officers were scrambling with traffic cones and handheld flashlights to direct cars around the disabled vehicles but rubberneckers were making everything difficult.

Tara listened to Dawson bark out orders to Shay and confer with Chief Boden. Multiple casualties. At least one head trauma. Several more ambulances needed. She couldn't keep up. Was blinking too slow. Hearing without understanding. Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Little! Move your ass! What do I always say?!" came the bellow from Dawson. React quickly. Tara remembered that at least as she grabbed a backboard and stepped down. Was it safe? Did PD have the street cordoned off? Good god was that smell fuel or flesh? Tara stuttered to a stop next to her superior. The rain was a wall, coming down between them. Visibility was nil. Rainwater was sheeting off the bridge it poured so hard. She couldn't even see a car in front of her. There was a car in the river?

Suffice to say Tara Little was overwhelmed. The exciting life she had envisioned full of action and thrills whittled her down to a scared shivering mess in an oversized helmet with the wrong sized gloves and someone pointing down the line of invisible cars saying:

"Do a preliminary assessment. Coordinate with Ambulance 33 if you can. Tell me the disposition of the occupants in the first car". Tara squinted into the near dark. The first car was a red Honda civic, two door crashed through the guardrail but not tipping over. The sort of car her jackass ex called a rice cooker, drag racing down the backroads of her hometown trying to scare the crap out of her. Funny how it worked and it didn't. She'd leaned into the long shrieking curves almost willing impact to occur. The first car. The red car. Okay. Go!

She slipped twice in thirty steps. Dawson called out instructions to her over the radio. So much chatter she couldn't focus. Truck was doing… what exactly with the jaws of life on the door of a 12 seater passenger van. Kids screaming their heads off. Scared and wild with panic. Tara blinked into soft focus by the driver side door of the Honda.

"Sir?" no response. "Sir?" Tara pressed. The airbag had deployed, his head was resting against it, blood trickled from his temple. But he was still. Quiet. Tara began to tremble.

"D-D-Dawson. He's dead"

"Did you check his fucking pulse Little?" that was Shay jolting her out of her terror. She placed her fingers at his neck, probed gently just in case she got it wrong but still…

"Driver has no carotid pulse. Head trauma. Possible broken neck. No other passengers" She turned his head side to side gingerly for a better look. Was she qualified to do this alone? Probably not. Probably she was flunking basic protocols. The guy was definitely dead.

"Tara. Report. I repeat. Report. What is the code?"

She wanted her to remember the fucking code for a DOA? It was a DOA! Tara sniffled. Brushed wet hair and rain out of her eyes. Smeared blood across her forehead. Rookie mistake. What was the code? A sound of disgust over the radio.

"Work backwards. There are four cars between us. What do you see?" Nothing. She saw nothing. It was pitch black but for headlights and flashlights and the soft glow of the bridge's lights. Was it creaking? Shit.

"I think.. I think there's a woman in the green minivan choking on her seatbelt"

"THEN DO SOMETHING TARA!" She ran forward. The minivan wasn't green. It was dark blue. Fuck. She had no fucking clue what she was doing. It was one minivan in a five car pileup with traffic backed up in both directions. Someone would figure it out.

Tara was fucking up. Dawson knew it. Just not royally. Not enough to pull her from the field. She couldn't remember protocol to save a damn life but it appeared this would be more recoveries than rescues regardless. She'd known something was off. Some intuition her abuela would have scolded her for ignoring. Dawson peered over the side of the bridge at the truck that Hermann –it was Hermann right?– was trying to get into. All she could see through the rain was the grey undercarriage. All she could smell was gas and be glad it was too wet to ignite while she and Shay moved through triage. It would be another fifteen minutes before even one ambulance could arrive because Friday night traffic and rain and the Kennedy Expressway. It was lucky that they, at least, were on a two way street. Squad 3 was below the bridge on one way N. Leavitt and from the sounds she heard over the radio, not doing well.

"Campbell's in trouble!" Capp called out, hoisting on the line submerged in the North Branch, waiting for his man to pull back. Campbell had been under for five minutes looking for the car without luck. Every moment he didn't tug back on the line was another moment Capp wanted to be down there instead. But Boden wasn't risking two men in the water with the rain and the water rising, no description for the car and Mills came running up with a destroyed bike which meant a cyclist, a motorist and a car in the river. For fuck's sake...

"Chief!"

"Haul him in! Now!"

And Capp started pulling along with the rest of Squad 3 until Campbell bobbed listlessly to the surface, one small body in his arms...

It was still raining when Severide stared mutely at his television. Reports of a multiple fatality car accident near the Lapthrop Homes took the late night news by storm. It was close to midnight and reports were coming in that three people had died at the scene. The video footage showed him Boden, yelling into a radio and glaring at the camera. Showed Shay hovering over a backboard, one man disoriented but alive and screaming while she tried to restrain him. The news anchor reported:

One confirmed death, Sandy Mitchell, 8 years old was pulled from the river hugging her teddy bear. No word on her parents and Severide saw red. Shaking, his whole leg protesting, he rolled towards the coffee table and his phone. Firehouse 51 had responded. Squad 3 had failed. It was all he could see in his head as the news droned on about the presumed drunk driver who spun out on the bridge, sending Sandy's car into the water. He watched as the sound of sirens pierced the background of the video as it aired over and over, a vague close up of the dead girl in someone's arms.

He speed dialed Shay.

The muted sound of her cellphone woke Shay up from a short nap in an emergency room chair while Dawson covered all the paperwork. It was late and she was cold and wet as she propped her phone between shoulder and ear.

"Hello?"

"Who went into the water?" Shay sat up. Kel was pissed. Seething if she could guess by his tone.

"Kel…" she knew that leaving him alone was less than ideal. That an idle Severide always meant trouble but the barely controlled sound of his voice over the phone was concerning.

"No one you know, Kel. Capp did all he could" she soothed.

"That's not an answer Shay"

"I don't know for certain!" she was lying. Capp's cracked voice had echoed over the radio. Campbell's got something. Something being the petite body of a girl with braids laced in cowrie. Her bedraggled teddy bear. The blue of her lips as she was finally put in the back of an ambulance when all casualties were accounted for: the living prioritized over the dead.

"I should have been there"

"Kelly. No. Don't do this!" her alarm carried with her voice and Dawson looked up from her paperwork with red rimmed eyes. "You didn't drive the car. You weren't there."

"Exactly! I wasn't there and I should have been!" he near howled and Shay held the phone away from her ear as he grew louder. Dawson walked over. Gestured with her hands to assist but Shay shook her head. No, this was her and Kel's fight. She waved Dawson off again as she turned and walked out into the pelting onslaught alone.

Thanks for reading!