2 months earlier-
Casey had stopped off at Kelly's apartment before heading in to work that day. He'd told Severide he'd be stopping by and he knew Kelly should be up already. His car was parked at the curb, Casey got out of his truck, headed up the steps and knocked on the door, and waited. Faintly, he heard footsteps moving through the room towards the door, and heard the chain and the bolt being undone.
The person who answered the door was not who Casey was expecting to see.
Instead of Kelly, there was a woman, a tall, tanned, blonde haired woman in her 30s, dressed only in a man's button-up shirt, her hair slightly mussed, a wide awake look in her eyes and a smug smirk on her face.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
Casey's brain couldn't even function at first. He stared at the woman, then took a step back and looked at the number on the building to make sure he had the right address.
"I'm sorry," he finally managed to get the words out, his tone indicating just how clueless he was about what was going on, "I must have the wrong apartment."
"Casey!"
Matt looked past the woman and saw Kelly entering the living room from the kitchen.
"Or maybe not," Casey amended his previous statement. He stood on his toes to be seen past the woman and asked Kelly, "Can I see you for a minute?"
"Sure," Kelly answered, clearly oblivious to Casey's unease at the situation.
Casey had already hotfooted it back down the stairs and was standing on the sidewalk as Kelly came outside and followed him.
"I told you I'd be coming over this morning, didn't I?" Casey asked.
"Yeah."
"Well...you could've called me if this was a bad time."
"It's not."
"Oh yeah?" Casey glanced back to the door. The woman was still there and coyly waved down to him. "A lot of your dates answer the door like that?"
"She's not a date," Kelly said. "We met at a bar last night."
"Oh that explains everything," Casey dryly remarked, "anyway, just wanted to drop off your ticket for the Blackhawks game next week."
Kelly grinned as he took the extra ticket from Matt. "Cool, thanks. I'll see you on shift."
"Yeah, sure, uh..." Casey looked towards the door again and asked Kelly, "You at least get her name?"
Kelly playfully jabbed him in the ribs and answered, "Cathy."
They were two hours into shift and just returning from a call when they encountered a peculiar sight just off the apparatus floor.
"What the hell?" Cruz asked as he pulled the rig into its accustomed spot.
"Who's that?" Otis asked, looking at the blonde haired woman in a tight black outfit who seemed to be arguing with Connie.
"Uh oh," Casey said, realizing it was the same woman who'd answered the door at Kelly's apartment.
Severide hopped out of the Squad rig and went over to find out what was going on, and just came into the tail end of the discussion the two women were having.
"Cathy?"
The blonde woman turned and her face lit up. "Kelly! I was hoping I'd find you here."
The others stepped out of the trucks and everybody stood around trying to figure out what was going on.
"This really isn't a good time, Cathy," Kelly told her, "What's up?"
"Oh, you forgot your phone when you left this morning," she said as she took it out of her pocket.
Kelly's hand absently reached to his right side pocket and realized it was missing. "Uh, thanks..."
"I was just going to leave it in your office and slip out, but," Cathy nodded towards Connie and said half under her breath, "I had a problem."
Casey took notice of Connie standing five feet behind the visitor, her usual no-nonsense expression on her face, except for one slightly raised eyebrow at Cathy's comment. A few more words were exchanged and Cathy turned to leave. Casey turned and watched her leave, so did everybody else, but for a very different reason. Everybody else's blood was flowing from watching how her body moved in the tight black fabric of her clothes. Casey had only been around the woman for a couple minutes, but he hoped that this was one of Severide's one night stands that had already run its course and the woman would be history by tomorrow.
Casey knocked on Kelly's door and opened it. "Can I come in?"
Kelly was at his desk working on his incident report of their last call and looked up from what he was doing. "Yeah, sure."
Casey did, and shut the door behind him, and thought about what he wanted to say, and instead went over to Kelly's bunk and laid down on it.
"This is a switch," Kelly noted. He turned in his chair and asked Casey, "What's on your mind?"
"Uh...how did that woman get your phone?"
"I left it at home when I came to work," Kelly answered, "it happens."
"Yeah, but..." Casey sat up, "what was she doing in your apartment after you'd left?"
Kelly picked up on something in what Casey was saying, but not the whole thing, and said in response, "She wanted to take a shower and freshen up before she left, that's all."
Casey did a double take. "Boy you're trusting, leave a woman you barely know alone in your apartment...she could've robbed you blind."
"Yeah well she didn't," Kelly took his phone out and held it up to prove his point.
"Are you sure?" Casey asked.
The look on Kelly's face said he wanted to shoot down Casey's question, but his own reasonable doubt was starting to apply. Finally though, he shook his head, "No way."
"Well, the good thing is if anything's missing tomorrow you can give the police a...more than adequate description."
"Shut up," Kelly picked up something from his desk to throw at Casey.
"You'd be able to answer the question about birthmarks or tattoos or other identifiable marks in very full details."
"Shut up," Kelly repeated with a small laugh.
Casey chuckled, then became quiet, and thought, and asked Kelly, "Did you tell her you're a lieutenant?"
Kelly paused to wrack his brain, "I don't remember."
"It's just...most people, who aren't familiar with the fire department...wouldn't know that a lieutenant has his own quarters," Casey said, "So how'd she know you did?"
Kelly shrugged, "I probably told her and just forgot."
"You told her you have an office at the firehouse?" Casey asked.
"We were drinking pretty heavily last night, I don't remember what I told her," Kelly said. He looked at Casey and asked, "Why?"
Casey didn't say what he was thinking, didn't say anything at all in fact. He wasn't sure what to say.
Kelly started laughing and said, "You're paranoid."
Casey smirked sheepishly and replied, "Not every day a half naked woman answers the door."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"But...it's just a one time thing?"
"Yeah, it's nothing serious."
Kelly's phone bleeped, indicating a new text message. He picked it up and Casey saw the Squad lieutenant's eyebrows raise halfway up his forehead and his eyes widened to maximum capacity.
"What is it?" he asked.
Kelly was still stunned as Casey leaned over, and felt his eyes do the same thing at the sight of a woman's body in the picture dressed in a see-through white T-shirt and black lingerie. The picture cut off at the woman's neck.
"Whoa, who's that?" Casey asked, genuinely intrigued.
Kelly shook his head, "I don't know."
Casey did a double take, "You don't know? How many women are you seeing right now?"
Kelly scrolled down to see if there was a message at the bottom of the text, then up to see who had sent the picture.
"It's Cathy," he said.
"That's Cathy? And you didn't recognize her?" Casey asked. "She can't look that different with her clothes on, Kelly." He leaned over again and asked him, "Why's she sending you pictures?"
Kelly shrugged, "Dunno."
"One time thing, huh?" Casey asked.
"Well...maybe two times," Kelly replied with a mischievous smirk.
"And you wonder why you're still single," Casey said.
"I don't wonder, I revel in it."
"Obviously," Matt responded.
"You know, it wouldn't hurt you to get out and meet someone."
"Getting drunk and going home with someone I barely know is not my idea of meeting someone, Kelly," Casey replied, "Or, for that matter, of a good time."
"It doesn't seem to matter what your idea of a good time is, Matt," Kelly said in return, "either way you haven't had one for months."
"I don't recall asking for your opinion," Matt told him as he lightly elbowed Kelly in the ribs.
"It wouldn't kill you to try it sometime, you know," Severide said. "You haven't even been out with a woman since..."
"Shut up," Casey teasingly elbowed him again.
"You should try it, it might do you some good," Kelly suggested.
Casey shook his head, "Thanks but no thanks, that's not how I go about looking for a relationship."
"Who said anything about a relationship? What's wrong with having a good time with no strings attached?"
"There are always strings, Kelly," Casey replied. "Just because you don't think about them doesn't mean they're not there."
Kelly raised an eyebrow in question, "Now what's that supposed to mean?"
Casey closed his eyes and shook his head dismissively and conceded, "Nothing, I'm being paranoid. Just...be careful, okay? CFD can't afford you getting another sexual harassment suit filed against you."
"Your trust is so touching," Kelly said teasingly.
Casey grabbed Kelly's phone away from him and brought the picture up again and asked him, "So, you gonna send her one back? You know, maybe in the shower," he held the phone in front of him waist-high.
Kelly laughed and elbowed him again, "Give me back my phone."