AN: Happy New Year. I'm actually quite sleepy and have nothing witty to say. Everyone's still upset in this chapter. And they all have good reason don't they?

Thank you for all your remarkable and lovely reviews. I still plan on a happy ending. I read too many romance novels to do otherwise. How the hell I get these two stubborn people to that goal tho..

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf, NBC, blah blah not mine. Boo. Hiss.

Kelly frowned. He was staring across the break room at Bri. She'd cried. During sex. And then tried to hide it. And then cried more when he hugged her to him, bewildered and out of his depth. She'd said sorry. Said she was overwhelmed with feeling and he could believe that was part of it. But she'd burrowed into his embrace, hidden her face in his neck, her hot breath damp on his skin. Then she'd stroked and rode him to another shuddering and quiet release before turning away to grab the sheets that had fallen to the floor and tucked them in without another word.

In short. His girl. The woman who never stopped talking and fighting had gone silent on him after being incredibly emotional and he was officially confused. They were still arguing. He was still mad about the bar fight and so was she. There was no getting around that. Her tears had just felt random as hell. Not fake but sort of out of nowhere. He'd spent a good fifteen minutes watching her back afterwards, knowing she was still awake but not looking at him before he had slowly, carefully, pulled her into his chest. He'd heard her breath catch and worried she was crying again. It didn't matter either way when she laced her fingers with his. It felt like he had permission to relax so he did, all the while, still confused as all get out and hurt underneath it all.

Breakfast before shift was subdued. She'd replaced the bandage on his bleeding eyebrow in the morning without saying a word. Touched the chain at his neck with that same strained silence, her eyes on the bruises, her hand over his heart. She reminded him that she and Shay were going away for a girls' weekend so she wouldn't be around post shift or for the next 48 hours and he'd responded noncommittally. It seemed like space was the order of the day at the moment. Her trip couldn't have come at a better time it seemed. Except that was bullshit and he knew he was going to be a sap and miss her. Especially since she was going away with the only other person in the Chicago area he trusted implicitly. He'd been good though. Asked her to write down where they were staying in case of an emergency. Said it was a good idea to get away since she and Shay had been on rocky terms. He didn't say kind of like we are right now, again. She'd smiled and said yeah and drank her coffee leaning up on the sink while he ate eggs at her table and they'd taken separate cars to the firehouse because she and Shay were leaving straight after shift and already his weekend was looking pretty dismal.

Why was she crying?

"Severide"

Kelly looked up to see Boden gesturing him into his office and he knew it was coming but it still sucked and everyone went quiet because nearly everyone had been there, at the bar and Bri was studiously avoiding everyone's glances including his. Casey was holed up in the officers' quarters because Casey and suddenly Kelly just didn't want to deal with anything anymore. All he'd ever wanted to be was a firefighter. Everything else was gravy. Was just different shit happening in the day in day out grind of trying to save people from the worst days of their lives. What the fuck was he even doing?

"So… what's your excuse?" Boden asked calmly as he sat down behind his desk, hands steepled in front of him. Kelly thought about it for a moment. How he could maybe spin his bruises into some kind of story but didn't. He shrugged calmly at Boden. Leaned back into the chair. He was familiar with this scene. He knew which way he would and wouldn't take the next few minutes. God forbid he do anything to impugn Lieutenant Matt Casey.

"I don't have one sir."

"Hmm." Kelly watched as Chief Boden also leaned back in his chair, a characteristic scowl bleeding across his stern face. "No police report was filed so I don't have to write you up for conduct unbecoming..."

And just then Kelly spared a silent thank you for Bri. Bri, who pissed him off with her indecision and lack of conviction but still had the presence of mind to call in a favour with her brother and he really maybe needed to get advice from Antonio. The tears during sex thing really had him freaked out. He wondered how he could even bring it up...

"Kelly" he blinked back into focus. Boden had been calling his name a couple times and he was clearly irritated.

"What's the matter with you two? How long are you gonna keep this up?"

It sadly took Kelly another thirty seconds to realize they were not discussing him and Bri. He wondered if he should lie and tell Boden it wasn't Casey he'd been fighting. One glance into his superior's eyes told him that shit wouldn't fly. Kelly sighed.

"I don't want to fight him Chief but when he starts shit… I don't know"

"So you don't have an excuse and you don't know. You two have known each other too long for this crap. Come on Kelly"

"No offense sir but every time Benny is in town you two sound remarkably similar"

It was quiet for a minute after Kelly's retort and he didn't even think to take it back. He knew it was true and he was curious how Boden would react to his candor.

Finally Boden chuckled and sat forward, leaning onto his desk, a half bemused half sad smile replacing the earlier frown. Kelly didn't mean to sound insubordinate but Boden was talking out the left side of his mouth if he thought his advice on the situation held any weight. Or maybe Kelly was just in that pissy a mood. Bri. Crying. Shit. He didn't want to be the reason for that and he knew he was no matter what she'd babbled incoherently while he was holding her. She was his. He was hers but the knot that pulled them tight seemed to be strangling her and all in all he wanted her happy. It was that simple. He'd said that from the start. Kelly wasn't keen on being a problem for anyone. And giddy though they were together, it all went to shit when they were around other people and other people were part of their lives. It wasn't like they could live in a bubble and he didn't want to either.

"Benny and I… that history is deep." Boden conceded without rancor and Kelly relaxed a little to see Chief taking his comment so well. "But you and Casey are not us. Your… issues. You will get past them. You are nothing like Benny Severide. You don't, on your worst days, stir shit up for the sake of pride."

Kelly didn't register the words at first. He was unsure whether or not Boden thought of his relationship with Bri as an issue. If Casey's vehement opposition to it, compounded with the blame they heaped on each other for Andy's death qualified their drama as the same caliber as Boden and Benny's. It took him another minute to recognize that Boden had tossed off, quite casually in fact, that he was nothing like Benny Severide. He glanced up at his boss, his face a mask of incredulity.

"Seriously Chief?"

"What?"

"You mean to say, I walked into your firehouse and you didn't see another cocky Severide asshole you'd have to put up with?"

"No. I saw a smart, driven, capricious son of a bitch. The youngest candidate to make Squad because he said so."

"Chief-"

"You look like your mother."

That shut Kelly up so quickly there was no space for air. He watched Boden walk around his desk to sit in front of him. He watched his boss peruse the bruised skin of his neck, the split lip, the butterfly bandage over his left eye from the glass cut laceration. He made no move to hide the torn skin of his knuckles as Boden shook his head gently.

"You have her eyes. It's the first thing I noticed about you. And her hair. Black Irish. I didn't see her much after Benny well, you know. But… your mother had the same piercing gaze. Stubborn too i imagine. Loyal. She never remarried did she?"

"No sir. Catholic"

"Hmm. More than that I think. Anyway. You're more like her than him. You find it easier to think you're him so you can rebel. So you can play against him but… you are too good a man for his sort of bad behavior. I don't care how many leather jackets you own. You care Kelly. You care so very deeply underneath it all or you'd be in Spain right now."

He didn't tell Chief that it was his father who convinced him to stay. That Benny had taken that moment, if only that moment to tell his son to disappoint everyone but himself. And Kelly had taken that to mean he should embrace the challenge of coming back from his neck injury to keep firefighting. So, he did. And he'd done it again without his derelict dad this time around. His real family, his firehouse standing around his hospital bed like the good friends they were. He couldn't be the reason they all fell apart… Kelly scratched the back of his neck and swallowed awkwardly.

"Chief, I hate to say this and I'm not saying I want to do it. But maybe a transfer…"

He watched Boden rock back on his heels in shock. The thought had not even occurred to him. To transfer him, and that felt good. Somewhat. Chief Boden took care of his men. But he needed to take care of all his men and right now, his officers were fighting. Not being terribly good role models of efficiency and authority and:

"Let's face it Chief. I'm the problem child. I should go."

"Kelly. I don't know where you get half the ideas that come into your head but that does not solve the problem."

"Chief-"

"Someone else is gonna die someday and you're gonna have to cope. You are both going to have to cope and blaming each other doesn't help which we both know I have more than enough experience with so why the hell you running for?"

It wasn't often that you heard the sound of where Boden grew up in his voice but just then Kelly heard the deep south side on his superior's tongue and knew he'd rattled the man way down to an anger that had nothing to do with work.

"It was just a sugges-"

"Go home Kelly. You came back too soon. You are benched until you get your head out your ass"

"No"

"Excuse me Lieutenant?"

"I'm not running away. Andy isn't the issue here. It's trust. Casey doesn't trust me. That's a huge problem when you have two lieutenants overseeing fifteen plus men who don't feel like they need to work together because their bosses don't get along. I don't want to transfer but you need to think about the entire house."

It was an impulsive suggestion. Kelly hadn't thought about doing it until he'd sat down across from Boden and listened to him talk about his mother and above all things, mad as it still made him at times, his mother had been selfless. Kind. He definitely did not inherit that gene but Firehouse 51 was in shambles enough between Andy's death less than a year ago and Campbell's outing to say nothing of his injuries, and long recovery bouts. Firehouse 51 needed stability and he wasn't it. Not by a long shot.

Boden stared at him and Kelly stared right back. It was a suggestion. Boden didn't have to do a damn thing and maybe he wouldn't. They were stubborn men all around in this equation but he really didn't want to fight anymore and he could be a firefighter anywhere else in the city. He could deal.

While Boden was staring Kelly down and trying not to yell so loud the entire firehouse heard his indignation, Dawson was the subject of much scrutiny by her peers. It made her chafe. It made her want to snap and she would have if she had the energy to do so but she'd spent the end of last night either hiccup crying in Kelly's lap or staring blindly at the wall. She was tired. On so many levels and Shay was sitting quietly by her side nursing a hangover while she did her crossword and the guys were being guys, nosy and noisy and less than subtle with the glances. She hadn't asked for her life to be a soap opera. Shay could say I told you so til kingdom come and probably would if the fractures in the firehouse became permanent but for all her hedging and prevaricating, Kelly was still the best part of her whole year so far and summer was more than half over. Halfway through and she'd been with him nearly eight months minus her hellish month plus interlude of indecision and his subsequent silence turned to raw panic during the building collapse. She sighed softly to herself. So maybe more like six months. Which was still half a year and she was still completely gone. She just didn't know how to be any other way with Casey than how she had always been and she was trying to change. She'd put up boundaries, made parameters for how their friendship worked and existed but that had all been shattered with the revelation of her relationship with Kelly.

Everything got ripped away. All the gentle earnestness Casey had shown in the wake of that last doorstep confrontation, gone. Pushed to the side with all his questions of why and how and she realized… he'd never apologized. Not really, she'd apologized over and over about Voight into his silence but even when she'd asked for boundaries. For space, he'd never spared a thought to really say sorry for hurting her. And he'd hurt her the night before, hurling those embarrassing accusations at Kelly. Had she become so inured to censure, to people scolding her for every impulsive action she took, that she didn't recognize when it wasn't constructive criticism anymore? When it was just boldfaced opinion masquerading as advice? She knew she didn't invest in her own intelligence. Her mother was still pissed about how much of her savings she put into the bar as opposed to getting further with her medical school aspirations but most days she felt good as a paramedic. Helping someone in the moment. Knowing she'd done all she could and leaving it at that and into the hands of someone more sure and capable to handle surgeries and recoveries. She suspected she wasn't built for long term aspirational goals like being a doctor.

And that was okay. She didn't have to be a doctor. It was more her mother's dream for her, than her own. Typical immigrant American dream but it wasn't hers. It wasn't Antonio's. They were happy civil servants in a city called Chicago and she loved her life. Really loved it. She loved Casey but not like she loved Kelly and it took her actually falling apart the night before to feel it. To really feel those three words she'd been saying for so long to herself. She was his completely and it didn't feel oppressive or stifling. How could it? Kelly made no demands but her continued safety. He'd been a pest on more than one job since he was back on shift. She acted like she hated it but really, it made her liquid at the center where no one saw. Other than that and her time, he made it easy because everything else was hard. He'd always known it would be hard and he hadn't given a damn. She could still recall how fierce he'd been, holding her close in her bed back in March. Saying it was nobody's business but theirs what they did and she'd held to it. She kept her love secret, kept it safe. When others teased her about getting on Sev's joyride and where in the firehouse they must have tried it, she smiled but didn't give details. Suspected Kelly was just the same and anyway outright strangers thought they were beautiful together. She felt beautiful with him. How the fuck did she make him believe that she believed in them? How many different ways could you have the same fight and stay together?

"Gabi"

Oh lord not now and Shay, the coward slid to the other side of the long table as Casey stood over her like a dark bruised cloud. Dawson looked up, her face placid despite all her inner turmoil.

"Unless you're apologizing, please stop making a spectacle of this entire situation and walk away now"

She murmured this quietly, irritated as she now always was, when people peeked around corners at the drama that had become a large portion of her life. The part that wasn't her and Kelly pulled close in her sheets and being the perfect fit she'd never thought possible. Before she overthought it to death, she fired off a kiss emoji to Sev because she could and words… they still definitely sucked at words. Maybe she should cancel her Shay weekend...

"You won't meet up with me outside the firehouse" Casey countered in a reasonable tone.

"That was one time and I was busy," Dawson replied calmly, her face neutral so none of the onlookers could decipher the tone of their conversation.

"With him."

"Casey,"

She managed to sigh his name instead of snap. She loved this man. That she no longer saw a future with him was odd and took a lot of adjusting and mental compromising and no doubt, he needed time to do the same but his condescending tone about her relationship with Kelly was beginning to grate on what was left of her already raw nerves. She'd cried enough in the last twenty four hours to feel wrung out and flat. The sort of drained that made any form of critique so much worse. If Antonio had showed up just then to say she had a lousy right hook, Dawson was sure she'd just sit down and weep. She was so damn tired.

"Believe it or not Casey at one point you liked him. You were friends. I'm not going to defend it or him because your mind is very clearly made up on the topic" She glanced around at the others quickly not looking for help so much as hoping they were looking away a least. She was upset that Casey was pursuing this conversation in front of their colleagues. Like she was such a flight risk he had to rely on her deeply ingrained desire to not look like a hysterical and irrational woman in front of the guys against her.

"He's not good enough for-"

"I wasn't good enough so maybe stop saying that" she cut in her voice wavering and angry. Tears were choking her throat yet again as she seized up, tired and emotionally exhausted. And when Casey proceeded to sit down across from her and take her hands in his own, it was all she'd ever wanted but too little too late. All the attraction and affection she'd always known was there, suddenly began shining out of his bottomless blue eyes:

"That was never the problem Gabi."

"Stop"

"Gabi" he persisted, "I wasted a lot of time because I wanted to do it when it was right and-"

"I said stop Casey"

Not here she wanted to say. Not like this, in front of everyone as she pulled her hands back because she had to. Everything he said made sense. Everything he said was logical and planned and completely beside the point of how she'd felt about him for years, which was irrational and all consuming. It took Kelly to show her that how she felt wasn't insane or the problem. That her desire to jump into the middle of things was okay. He made it okay the way he'd dived into the accident that was their relationship and its rippling effects on everyone around them. She'd been the one to hesitate each and every step of the way because she thought that was what she was supposed to do while he said fuck it and she looked on, incredulous and admiring. Kelly's whole life philosophy could be explained in those two words and she wanted to follow where he led when he said it. She was excited for the adventure of it all, of them. Even if they were strained at the moment.

"Kelly and I are together. I know him. He knows me. I want this."

She was as firm as she could be given the tumult her stomach was putting her through. Ultimatums felt awful and while that wasn't precisely what she was doing, she knew it would feel like one. Like she was closing the door on their possibility because she had. Last night surrendering completely to Kelly at the very moment when he was no longer emotionally present, the harrowing gap she felt and fell into where he possessed her without seeing her... Dawson could not continue to teeter at the edge, watching Kelly suffer with her indecision. It wasn't fair and she wasn't actively trying to do it but he was right when he called her out about her reaction to the bar fight. She would be better. She would recognize that her feelings of unworthiness had no part in their connection and she couldn't allow Casey the space to spew venom at Kelly while professing to care for her. She loved Kelly and that meant she had to take care of him too.

Dawson looked Casey directly in his eyes, her whole body trembling quietly as though she was cold, aware of everyone watching and still incapable of turning away from this moment. This was a corridor she needed to walk down just like the way she left Kelly in his hospital room with Shay. Necessary and heart rending and still she could only whisper:

"You want me to be a random lay because then there's still a chance. Then, you can forgive me for my oh so foolish decision to be with Kelly and pretend it never happened. That it doesn't matter."

She watched Casey flinch but not protest. She was using his own words against him. He was the one who'd said she was just a random fuck on rotation. At least he was good enough to not try excusing it. His hands were still on the table reaching out to her. She was twisting her fingers painfully in her lap. Casey was taking in her whole face with his eyes, like he was memorizing her in this moment. Like he was committing his idea of her to memory before she destroyed it with her truths. "But it matters Casey. What you said… I can't accept it. I matter to Kelly and he matters to me and hiding how I feel about him was hard enough. Please stop making us being together that much harder."

Please. She wanted them to stop fighting. To call a truce and grieve Andy together. Kelly talked about Griffin sometimes. Said he was just like Andy as a teenager and how Ben was like both of them as a little kid and the strain of all these small and large distances was too much. They were all so acutely aware of life's brevity. Their jobs saved lives. She gave Casey all the earnestness she could muster in her exhausted state. They were 3 hours into a 24 hour shift and she really wanted to be in bed, far away and dreaming of something better than her present.

She watched Casey watch her for a good long minute, breath held suspended over another long drop. This man was her friend. A complicated mess of a friendship though it had become, Casey was someone she couldn't stop caring about. She watched as he leaned back in the chair with a soft sound.

"I can't accept this Gabi. I won't. I won't watch him hurt you. Don't come to me when he does exactly what he's always done."

Her mouth dropped open. He couldn't really be this cold. He couldn't.

"Casey, why can't-"

Firehouse 51. Truck 81. Squad 3. Ambulance 61. Structural fire. Taylor Street and Oakley Blvd.

Dawson was too stunned to rise when Casey did. He was angry. He was lashing out. Casey was the good guy. The nice guy. He was shunning her. Again. For a choice she made with her heart. Would he ever come around?

Shay's thumbs drummed the steering wheel awkwardly. Dawson was quiet beside her. She'd overheard more of their conversation than anyone else in the break room and she was waiting for Dawson to say something. Anything. Casey's opinion had always mattered to her. What he thought was important and to witness the cold way he'd gone from holding Dawson's hands to realizing this wasn't something he could fix... That Dawson and Kelly were something he could not change with all his determination. Shay whistled softly as she followed the interstate north out of Chicago. It'd been a long and grueling shift and she was looking forward to three days off.

"I love him."

Shay froze in the driver's seat, praying Dawson didn't mean who she thought Dawson meant. Hoping today was not the day for that sort of revelation and subsequent confession because it was too early and she was too tired. Still, she'd never leave Dawson hanging awkwardly in a silence so,

"Who?"

"Kelly. I love Kelly Severide." Shay glanced over to see Dawson smiling, her eyes glassy with tears, but her whole face wide open and beaming besides that.

"Did you… just figure that out?"

Shay couldn't help herself. She was curious. Shay had been walking around in circles with panic while her two friends had jumped the train and never said boo about where they were going if anywhere. She listened to Dawson snort laugh.

"No."

Well, okay. At least Dawson had a handle on how she was feeling. Probably why she was such a mess about everything. Loving two different men had to be interesting...

"Does Kelly know?"

"Shay, we both know how he'd react if I ever said a thing." and the sound of her derisive laugh, of Dawson wiping her eyes and sniffing her nose made Shay sad and uncomfortable. Dawson was operating under the idea of Kelly as he usually was with women. She thought saying the words would make Kelly run scared but in truth, it was the opposite. This was a piece of knowledge Shay guarded fiercely. Kelly loved Shay to hell and back. He was her best friend and big brother and partner in crime and through it all was her biggest champion during pratfalls and pending STD test results. Kelly didn't let anyone see it because he'd been hurt too deeply, too young. He still had that chip on one corner of his shoulder. The one that told him he wasn't good enough and accounted for the leather jacket and his careless smirk. He still had that soft bruised heart, like a little kid waiting at the door for his father to come home. Shay didn't think it was an accident that Kelly had become a firefighter instead of anything else but she couldn't articulate that into words for Dawson without betraying Kelly. And Dawson knew parts of Kelly that she would never get to see or understand so...

"It's okay to be scared Dawson."

"Shay-"

"No, you can't blame it on Kelly. We both know how you are when you care about someone. You are all in. You will do anything you can for that person. I have watched you do some stupid things for Casey and he just shat all over your hands in the break room. You're scared."

She would never apologize for being direct in the moments that she could. It wasn't Shay's way. They were hours away from the cabin and she needed Dawson to understand this. She wouldn't give away the fact that Kelly definitely loved her too. His devotion was a huge beacon on his forehead for anyone who really knew him to see. And anyway, she sort of felt honoured that she got to hear this first. This secret when everything about Dawson with her best friend had been covert. Had been locked away from her for disapproving. But hey, she had not been wrong once yet.

"Me loving Kelly doesn't change the way things are Shay. The way you said they would go all along."

"No but it's changed you. Hasn't it?"

Shay glanced over to see Dawson with her hand over her heart, her mind a thousand miles away. She loved this woman. She didn't say it but she did and would definitely have slept with her if Dawson swung that way but they were friends and partners and she knew Dawson well enough to know everything she was feeling was exhausting her. Her hair was loose around her shoulders from twisting and untwisting it in her upset over Casey. Her face said she was tired and Dawson nodded her response yes, loving Kelly had changed her but she didn't say another word. Shay shook her head.

"Alright then. This weekend we will drink tequila and toss our phones into a dark corner and the Lieutenants of Firehouse 51 will not cross your mind til Monday morning. Deal?"

A soft laugh was Dawson's only response and Shay knowing it was real, knowing that love was now on the table, knew the firehouse was never going to be the same. She'd give Dawson whatever reprieve she could.

Thanks for reading!