AN: Fair warning. Sexual situations are implied at the beginning of this chapter. I have removed most of the explicit detail as a precaution. But if you read the last chapter... Dawson's head is basically on flashback mode. Skip to paragraph three if it makes you uncomfortable. PM me if you want the full version. The show makes no bones about Kelly's sexual prowess so it's going to continue to be a feature of his personality in this story. I have my opinions on what that means for his character's psychological profile.

Full disclaimer: I do not own the rights to these characters and they are the property of Dick Wolf et al. But oh what I would do if I did...

Dawson felt lost. Like she'd stepped through a trap door into a world that looked like hers but wasn't. After Kelly had proved to her just how weak and incapacitated he was not, they'd cleaned up together. She'd dragged a plastic chair into his shower because she was serious about no weight on his leg and he'd pulled her onto his lap, declared it his favourite look on her, while she washed his hair and groaned and shuddered. All she could do was hold on until she became liquid like the water around them and then it was all looking and kissing and Kelly pouring himself into her like fire. Like the blue center of a flame she'd always thought they were in bed.

She knew why she did it. Dawson wanted to be Bri all the time. She wanted to exist in that insane heat where she felt safe and found and whole and she was going to take all she could of it before she let go. Before she felt she had to. If it was going to hurt either way, and it did, she wanted more and Kelly had given her everything she'd ever asked for and some things she didn't. So, she was sitting at her kitchen table a week later reminiscing with a glass of wine, touching her face, perusing the hickey bruises finally fading to green on her inner thighs and feeling more than a little hot. They finally had a name for the bar. Molly's and the story of how the man in that nursing home had lost the bar but kept the girl was playing over and over in her head. It meant something. It was a sign somehow. She wasn't stupid but she felt hollow. Remembering Kelly on his side behind her to take pressure off his leg, how he'd hauled her up to his chest...

The doorbell rang. It was not too late but she didn't really feel like company so she stood, wrapped her robe around her and went to look through the peephole. It was Casey. Dawson really didn't feel like hashing things out with him. Things had gotten out of hand with the door and she still felt unaccountably hurt by the way he'd treated her. Did she expect him to be angry? Yes, but they'd always talked. When he'd shut her out… she wasn't built to do the same. Slowly, with more than a little dread, Dawson opened the door.

"Hey Casey. What's up?" he looked as wonderful as ever. Hands in his pockets on her front steps. He'd always made her feel excited to see him before. Always made her anxious and excited inside that unresolved sexual tension spiral they rode like a tide coming in and going out from the shore. She needed that part to be over. The thing about that tide was. It didn't stick around and she'd jumped up and down, bobbed with it and against it enough to know it wouldn't change. Casey had and probably always would have, this effect on her. What she did with it was up to her.

"Can I come in?"

"No,"

She meant it in the nicest way possible even while her heart was racing. She was trying to be better. She wouldn't allow him into her home and further into her heart than he already was. Casey was a permanent fixture. She accepted that. He was too entwined with too many of her Firehouse 51 memories to ever be nothing to her. But he was standing on her front steps assuming he had permission to enter, to stop by unannounced, because she'd always given it before. Always made it easy for him. Besides which, she was missing someone else and it was too soon. Far too soon to allow either of the men who'd crushed her to take up the space he'd left. She still had his three t shirts and one sock. She wasn't giving them back and she wasn't going to paint her walls. "You take me for granted Casey. Like right now, doing this. You take me for granted and I let you so it's my fault and I'm tired."

Dawson's face screwed up and she shook her head. This wasn't about blaming him. He'd reacted predictably to what she'd put out there as what she was willing to put with. Casey was a guy like any other guy. She needed to stop putting him on a pedestal in her mind. "Look, if you want my friendship Casey. You're gonna need to prove it. Shutting me out, pretending I was nothing because you didn't agree with me? That's not friendship. If we can't even talk… if you can't accept me when I make mistakes then what is this?"

The night was cool and she pulled her robe tight around her. It was thinking of Shay and Kelly's friendship that had pushed this thought to the front of her brain. Especially since their intense friendship was why she was drinking wine alone with her memories. Those two were dysfunctional, and more than a little codependent but always had each other's backs.

"I don't know what to say," Casey murmured.

"Then don't" Dawson whispered earnestly. She didn't want to hear him say things that could hurt her. She couldn't help him when she felt so lost inside her head. It felt like Kelly had parked himself in one small corner of her brain and try as she might, Dawson couldn't get him out. She shook her head gently at Casey as he looked at her.

"Sleep on it. I'll see you at the house." her pulse was in her throat. She'd never done this with him. Not really, said no. It felt foreign and strange but not actually wrong. "Have a good night"

"Good night Gabi" and she found she had the strength to watch him walk away without panicking this time. Without calling him back. So much had changed between them that he didn't even know. And one small part of her would always wish to share things with him first. She just had to figure out what and how much of herself she could spare.

Shay didn't know what was up but something was. Except she was maybe a little too exhausted to care. Kelly was being a giant Kodiak bear sized pain in her ass. He was relentless about working out in the ways he could, diligent about his physical therapy and doctor appointments to the point of saying Don't bother I can handle this. And yes maybe the motherfucker could handle it but shit, he was her best friend. If he had an X-ray appointment then she had an X-ray appointment. That's just the way it was and she was really really sorry for blowing him off for nearly thirty six hours. She didn't mean to make him worry. She'd just felt so overwhelmed and without any outlet and why couldn't he forgive her? Angie was amazing and totally helped out!

That day she'd been gone, Shay had been under, over and in a girl she'd met at one of her favourite lesbian haunts. One of the places she went to forget about bad shifts and worse. One of those things she did when she felt more dead than alive and that shift had been a really bad shift right down to Kelly blaming himself and screaming at her. And Shay feeling like she'd been scraped out from the inside with grief and pain and so much worry that all she could do was destroy something. Usually it was herself. That night with shots lined up and the bartender calling all comers, Shay had fallen prey to vodka and a lovely woman named Sasha before Angie had sidled up and said "I'm taking you home" and Shay, so accustomed to being the one in control and tired of it at the same time, just jumped. What followed included one lovely harness, an occasional double-sided dildo and too many orgasms to count.

Shay had let go. Then woken up, gone several more rounds with a wall of mirrors as background and then collapsed into another postcoital daze while Angie decided to paint her. Shay now knew exactly what she looked like naked and pleasured dumb. Angie's portrait of her was as embarrassing as it was wonderful. But she was sitting across from her sullen roommate, not basking in the small joy that was Angie because something was up. Had been up. Her first night back at the apartment Kel had just looked at her like he didn't know her and hobbled away. Not a word of conversation. No questions about where she was or what she was doing because he had taken one look at her and known. And she'd looked at the pill dispenser and bitten her lip raw.

It seemed he'd heeded her advice about Dawson. Only once had she quietly mentioned all the new food and he bit her head off saying she could have all the brownies because he didn't fucking care. Which was a lie of course and she'd plated three of them with a glass of milk not more than an hour later to a mumbled thank you before Kel turned back to the television. But this morning her roommate was staring up at the ceiling, hands clenched on his thighs in pain and he wasn't saying anything. Not to her. Angie was still in the shower and she didn't have a shift and he didn't have a physical therapy appointment so maybe they could all do something together.

Angie had quickly surmised that Kelly was important to her and acted accordingly. It was endearing really. In the last few weeks she'd created two beautiful sketches of them. Just stark black and white renditions of their faces and framed them. They now hung on either end of the television like the beginning of a set of family portraits. Shay loved it. She was smiling in hers but Kelly was rendered in quiet, stoic reflection, looking out at the viewer like they were nothing. That Angie had perceived that in Kelly was troubling enough.

"Why don't we make a trip to the firehouse? I know you miss it"

"No one we hang with is on this shift"

"So we go to the park. Or one of the beaches. Let's just get out Kelly!"

"You should go with Angie, I'll only slow you two down. Plus the beach with crutches is just plain stupid."

He was punishing her. That had to be it. Well two could play at that game.

"How about I take you to Molly's? It should be almost done"

"What's Molly's?" Shay forgot that Kelly wasn't at the firehouse when Hermann et al and declared their bar Molly's in honour of a prior owner's wife. Apparently Dawson had lead the charge on that idea and the men had liked it enough to agree. When Shay had finally pulled the full story of Molly out of Dawson, she'd thought it sentimental and sweet. The look on Dawson's face though...

"Hermann's bar. You know, the one that he and Otis and everyone has been fixing up. They finally named it. Got their liquor license in order too." Dawson had mentioned it briefly. She was infuriated by how much bribery it took to get things done through actual legal channels. She wasn't surprised, she'd told Shay. Just very very pissed. She wanted this to work. Antonio had helped her get past the trickiest of the hurdles but she hated owing her brother anything. She'd offered all of this to Shay like they were back on equal footing. Like things were back to normal and Shay had taken it as such when Mills bounded up asking Dawson for help with something in the kitchen and Dawson was fine about helping. No wide eyed looks at Shay begging for reprieve. She'd stood beside her ex in the kitchen with Pouch dancing around her feet and looked absolutely 100% fine.

They still needed to have a serious discussion about what was up with her and Casey, never mind please dear god woman flunk Tara already. The way Otis and Cruz circled around the other blonde like bees trying to make honey was nauseating. But looking across at Kelly, his face clearing a little as though he'd come out of a dark dream, Shay figured visiting couldn't hurt too much. Isolation wasn't doing him any good and the doctor had sounded positive during his last visit. The truth was if Kelly had not been in peak physical health, his prognosis would have been very different. His heart was healthy, he had an active lifestyle and he was more than willing to put in the work necessary to get back on his feet without issue. The fracture was healing well and didn't seem to need surgical intervention. Low impact physical therapy was recommended before he lost more muscle mass and tissue to the leg. There was also the concern about joint stiffness…

"Yeah well I miss drinking alcohol. Might be nice to see it. But if you and Angie…"

"Angie has a gig. We'll all leave once she's ready and I can drop her off on the way."

Kelly gave her a puzzled look. He still looked like he was in pain but he wasn't asking for a pill and she wasn't giving it either and if these headaches kept coming she was taking him to a neurologist.

"What Kel?"

"You met her what, three weeks ago and now she's using your shower and you're dropping her off"

"Yes….?"

"Do you think you're the only one capable of that? Is it only okay when you jump into someone headfirst, no thought for anyone else around you?"

Oh. Fuck. He really hadn't forgiven her. And he was hurt. Kelly saw through her suggestion for the manipulation it was and came back with barbed dividends. He knew she wanted to test him. Test to see how he'd act around Dawson and he made it plain that he wasn't having it. Kelly had always been direct. Shay straightened up.

"Whatever baggage Angie has isn't tied up in people I work with." Shay said curtly. Kelly snorted.

"That's just a convenient excuse. When have I ever done things easy?"

He didn't which was why she worried. God damn it the man had almost quit the job entirely and moved to Spain. He wasn't afraid to do something drastic. If he was ready to blow a hole in his friendship with Casey she couldn't stop him but dallying with Dawson was a one way ticket to a long term split the firehouse could not handle. Not right now. Not when he was off his feet and couldn't defend his turf.

"Do you want to go or not?"

She sidestepped his question because the answer was obvious. And really, she couldn't throw stones at the man who had been so ready to commit to two different women in the last few years and failed. Kelly played the jackass commitment phobe well but he was loyal to the memory of his women long after they were gone. Whaley had no clue about his sister's infidelity until she'd said something. Renee didn't know the half dozen times she'd seen Kelly at his laptop looking at tickets to halfway across the world. When her friend loved he loved hard and hurt twice as badly when it was all over. She just didn't believe that was what happened with Dawson.

"Yeah sure. Let me get my jacket" she watched him stalk away on his crutches with a frown before going to see if Angie was done.

The bar looked amazing. If the door was picked out by Dawson, she had good taste. It was dark stained wood with what looked like a porthole at the top. The door handle was aged brass. It all looked at home with the worn brown brick that said this bar was an authentic piece of Chicago history. A low-key neighbourhood dive, Kelly loved it immediately.

"You sure they're here?"

"They work on it every day they don't have shifts. If no one's here Hermann's having a coronary"

Shay helped him up the three short steps before opening the door and yelling out to all and sundry that an injured comrade had come calling. Turned out it was all hands on deck as more than one voice called out from each corner and Cruz swallowed Kelly in a hug, slapping his back a little too roughly. He cough laughed through it as he was led to a barstool. Everything was either brick or dark wood. The original brick on the outside still lined the interior stretching all the way to the back wall which was painted a light blue. Mills was installing twinkle lights across the ceiling which must have been Dawson's influence. Otis was yelling at Hermann who was yelling at Capp about how he was installing the television. Mouch watched all three of them with disgust. And Kelly laughed out loud for the first time in weeks. It was good to see the guys all together outside of the house. Acting like family. He gave Cruz a grin and leaned his crutches up on the bar while Shay wandered over to make sure Mills didn't fall off the step ladder no one was holding for him. Amateurs.

"How goes it?"

"Not bad lieutenant. Not bad. Otis says they'll be open in the next week or two"

"That's great!"

"Yeah Otis has a cousin who's going to be one of the bartenders while she's visiting from Russia. Hermann's not happy he promised it but Dawson told him they had no overhead for a staff just yet so…"

Kelly tuned Cruz out for a minute. She walked out of the back holding a box of cleaning supplies with Casey following her. He didn't think about that for a minute because her hair was in the same high bobbing bun from that first morning and she was wearing an oversized sweater with two large holes in each shoulder. And from here he could still see one fading mark. It made him smirk. She pointed Casey to a table, ducked under Hermann and Capp by the television and set the cleaning supplies on the bartop before she even noticed him but when she did…

"Hey you," she was crossing the long space without hesitation and slapping him back into his seat when he tried to stand. She was looking right at him and smiling like there was no one else in the room before she seemed to remember herself and stepped back "How's the leg doing?"

"Hey D, it's doing" he joked while cringing inwardly. And she cocked an eyebrow in amusement before looking at Cruz and rattling off in Spanish while the other man chuckled and nodded. "Not cool to say things the whole room doesn't understand D" Though he really liked when she spoke Spanish. He really did. He sat back deeper on the bar stool.

"Nothing you need to hear Severide. Can you drink? Cruz is going to grab beers for everyone from the back." she gestured as Cruz scampered away after a moment.

"Ask Mommy Dearest" and he watched her blink in surprise. She got the reference and put two and two together with how he felt about Shay at the moment. Her mouth pursed thoughtfully.

"Maybe I'll just get you water…"

"Aw I'll just nurse it. I promise. And I'm not driving so"

He watched her smile then nod okay. He could see that she wanted to linger but also that she was uncomfortable. They both knew at least one set of eyes would be staring right at them. Kelly wanted her stay. Wanted to be around her, it'd been weeks since her visit. How to make that happen?

"Has Shay told you about Angie?" he blurted out.

"Angie? Whooooo is Angie?" Dawson drawled making a production of it as she turned to her partner.

Kelly went to town describing the tall curvaceous brunette his best friend had brought home. The guys were all ears of course and Dawson fake punched Shay for holding out while moving to wipe down the bar with a rag and some of the cleaning supplies she'd brought out.

"She's an artist so I'm sure she's good with her hands," teased Kelly as the guys chortled and Cruz came round with a bottle of beer for everyone. Hermann called a halt to all work and gathered Otis and Dawson for a short toast.

"Thank you guys for all showing up on your off day to help us out. It's been an… interesting time to say the least and I am so proud of us. To many years at Molly's!"

They all cheered in agreement and sat down to drink. Dawson drew Otis and Hermann into an argument about the concept of ladies night every night and Shay was asking if that meant it was going to be a lesbian bar when Casey strolled over to sit down next to Severide. He immediately became guarded.

"How's the leg doing really?"

"It'll be another month til i'm out of the boot. Started physical therapy" Severide wasn't sure what to make of Casey's friendliness after so long fighting him. From what he knew, Heather still wasn't talking to him but allowed Casey to see the boys all the time. He was Griffin's godfather and he couldn't even see him. Casey was the golden boy, nothing he did was wrong. But Severide remembered quite clearly what he'd said in the house the day Andy died. He remembered saying there was no vent. He remembered all of it. And Casey blaming him was lower than lower given how long he'd known Andy.

"Capp's done a good job with Squad while you're out"

Severide wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not given the very difficult job he'd watched play out on the local news a few weeks ago. Shay, for all his annoyance at her, still wouldn't talk about it past berating the paramedic candidate as a dolt and wondering why Dawson hadn't canned her ass yet. He trusted Capp though and hoped the guy would reach out if he ever felt overwhelmed. It wasn't an easy job. He was also concerned about:

"Tell me what you know about Campbell"

"He's decent in a fire but shit leading Squad" Casey said bluntly.

"Shit. Really?"

"I think he's not used to high intensity non fire rescues is all" Severide watched as Casey glanced over at Dawson. She was yelling at Mills to get off the ladder if he was going to drink. They didn't have the money to pay out accident claims. They both watched as Mills laughed and patted Dawson on the head as he climbed down. They looked at ease with each other. Whatever else had happened between them, Mills and Dawson seemed able to deal with it. Or maybe Dawson just didn't want Mills to know how badly he'd hurt her. When she punched Mills before dragging him to a table to sit, Severide laughed.

"She's going to make an excellent barkeep" he noted.

Casey murmured his agreement without turning back to look at him and something went cold and dark in Severide. Casey watched Dawson and he wasn't sure if he would call his gaze possessive but it still didn't thrill him. He wanted the other lieutenant to look away, to leave Bri alone because if nothing else had been real between them, her distress over letting Kelly go was. She'd nearly cried before he kissed her. Tears. Jesus. With Dawson he'd seen a whole spectrum of emotions he never thought he'd be privy to with her. If she'd felt more than that for Casey and he still didn't come through for her. He took a long pull of his beer and kept watching.

Dawson was a wreck but didn't want to show it. She was terrible at lying though. She'd punched Mills for mocking her and scalded Otis with her ready tongue and she wasn't looking at them. Nope. She was not going to look at them sitting side by side like a girl's threesome fantasy drinking beer and watching her. She knew that they were and if she thought for thirty seconds about Kelly's eyes on her she'd need a dark room and some time alone for the next hour. An hour she did not have with the guys surrounding her. Good god. He'd shown up in his leather jacket on crutches. Shay was being as anxious and paranoid as when they'd first confessed to her. All quick glances and hovering while Casey was still confused about how to be a friend but all of that was white noise and second place to the throbbing ache that seemed to start with her heartbeat behind her breastbone and quiver its way through every limb.

He smiled and she'd remember the exact same look with his head between her thighs and her knees wanted to wobble and she wasn't that girl. Weak in the knees was not a thing for trained paramedics who'd seen more death and bloody viscera than fairytales and rainbows. Dawson took a swing of her beer before slowly packing up the cleaning supplies. It was hopeless. All of it. Kelly. Her. Cleaning in the midst of putting the bar together. It all made no sense so she started heading to the back and

"Hey Dawson!" she turned towards Kelly's voice. "Where's the head around here?" He'd waited until Shay was occupied talking to Hermann, til Casey was locked in some dispute with Cruz and she had her arms full of chemicals she couldn't drop. He was hopping over to her on his crutches with ease and she felt an answering tremble in her own legs. Down girl. Breathe.

"Follow me. I'll hold the door" she gently pressed the swinging door open to accommodate his see-saw gait and his smell, the one that she'd mooned over that first night and every night since, washed over her and she couldn't stop the quick inhale if she tried. He heard it as the swinging door closed but her hands were still full and she pointed with her chin to the men's room. She was walking the other way, to the office and stock room but he hovered there for a minute just looking and her body wanted to fall apart. He wasn't doing anything and she wanted to fall apart. She chanced a look through the porthole of the swinging door. No one. Kelly was leaning his crutches up on the wall. What is he doing? Everyone is right there! Kelly was standing on one leg without a problem and holding her face between his hands. He kissed her nose once and each eye and her forehead just briefly before pulling back. Dawson was clutching the box of cleaning supplies. If it dropped, someone would come running and Kelly was pressed up against her hands holding it. His thumbs making circles on her cheeks.

"I see you too you know"

Dawson stared up at him completely flabbergasted and so turned on she could cry. He shuffled back and away. He smiled that smile before hopping into the men's room. Dawson locked herself in the stock room for a good fifteen minutes before she felt remotely close to sane.

Thanks for reading!