Severide opened his eyes and saw the sunlight starting to come in through the balcony window. He turned over and saw Matt's side of the bed was empty.

"Casey?"

Kelly got out of bed and looked around the room, then he heard the water running in the bathroom.

Kelly looked at the clock and tried to figure why Casey was taking another shower now when they were just going to need another one when they got back from the beach again, then decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to get one himself, since even he wasn't exactly sure what all they'd be doing that day. He got a change of clothes ready, then headed over to the bathroom, opened the door and stuck his head in, "Hey Casey, you gonna be long?"

There was no response.

"Casey!" Kelly called to be heard over the water. Again nothing.

"Casey? You fall asleep in there?" Kelly went over to the shower and yanked back the curtain.

Casey just reentered the hotel room with a morning paper when he heard a scream coming from the bathroom, and a few seconds later heard the door slam and saw Severide walk out, everything from the top of his head to the bottom of his shirt was dripping wet and he had a long scowl on his face.

Casey took in this sight with a pair of wide eyes and said only, "I guess I should've mentioned we had company."

Not even thinking to be surprised by Casey's sudden presence, Kelly cynically responded, "Yeah that might've been nice, instead I got a naked woman screaming at me trying to ram a bar of soap down my throat." He walked past Casey, then turned on his heel and added as an afterthought, "Didn't see anything, I swear."

"Kelly, right?"

Severide slowly turned his head to the side and looked through the corner of his eye and saw the woman standing in the doorway tying the belt shut on her bathrobe. He turned around and saw Melaina, her blonde hair a shade darker stuck against the sides of her face and her shoulders from the water.

"Your name's Kelly, right?" she repeated.

"Uh...yeah," Severide's brain finally remembered how to make words again, "yeah, that's me."

The blonde woman inhaled and let out a small giggle as she replied, "Sorry about that, you scared the hell out of me."

"Oh well that's..." Kelly turned his head back towards Casey and murmured to him, "Can I speak to you in private?"

Casey looked over Severide's head and called to Melaina, "We'll be back in a minute."

Kelly forcefully walked him over to the bedroom and closed the door.

"What the hell is going on?" Kelly demanded to know. "Where did she come from? What happened last night? Correct me if I'm wrong, last night we went to bed in the same room, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then where'd she come from?" Kelly asked.

"It's not what you think," Casey told him.

Severide had absolutely no idea what to take that to meaning.

"Then explain it to me," he said.

Casey looked at him, and told him, "I woke up, I couldn't get back to sleep, I didn't want to wake you up so I went out. I ran into her down on the fourth floor where the pool is...she and Phoebe are both staying here as well..."

"I didn't know that."

"Neither did I. They're two floors below us," Casey said. "Anyway...we started talking...and we left the hotel and went down to the Boardwalk and..."

Kelly leaned over with widened eyes, not wanting any details to slip past him.

"And what?"

Casey looked at him and recoiled. "And still nothing happened...we went down to the beach and we talked for most of the night...we fell asleep out there, we came back half an hour ago, she forgot her key card and didn't want to wake Phoebe up so she asked if she could get cleaned up here."

Kelly spent a few minutes taking all of that in and finally concluded, "I guess I have to believe you because that's the craziest story I've ever heard."

There was a knock on the bedroom door. "Matt?"

The two men turned towards the voice. "Yeah?"

"I'm leaving now, thanks for letting me use the shower."

"No problem," he called through the door. Once they heard the front door shut, the two men turned back to each other.

"Nothing happened," Casey told him.

"Are you going out with her later?" Kelly asked.

"Yes."

Kelly was beaming from ear to ear. "I told you."

Casey didn't look amused. "I don't see anything coming of this, Kelly."

"What's wrong with that?"

"I want it to."

"Then what's the problem?" Severide asked.

"I don't know," Casey shook his head. "I just don't want a repeat of what happened last night...and I don't want to ruin our vacation...but I also don't think I can do this knowing in a week we're never going to see each other again...I don't..."

"Matt, you'll be fine, just take it easy," Kelly told him. "Maybe you're right, maybe this isn't going to be longterm, but there's nothing wrong with having a stepping stone in between to get back in the rhythm of things."

"I don't want a stepping stone," Casey replied. "I want to be with a woman that I love, who actually loves me, why is that too much to ask for?"

His words hit Kelly like a punch to the gut.

"It's not, Matt, it's not too much to ask for."

"Then why is it no matter how hard I try, I never get it?" Casey asked hopelessly. "What am I doing wrong?"

Kelly wasn't sure what the right way to answer that was. "You just haven't found the right woman yet."

"What if I never do?" Casey asked.

"Then you'll be in the same boat as me," Kelly told him.

"Now I'm really depressed," Casey replied.

Kelly laughed. "Buddy, you'll be fine, just take it slow, you know what you're okay with, don't push yourself."

"What if it turns out to be a disaster?" Casey asked. "What if it's just like last night?"

Kelly looked at him and told him, "Then you call me, and I'll come get you, and we'll pick up the pieces together."

Casey was visibly overwhelmed by his answer. He was practically shaking as he reached over and put his arms around Kelly and told him, "Thank you."

"Hey you got this, Casey," Severide assured him.

Casey closed his eyes and massaged his temples and groaned. He was exhausted, he was dizzy, he wanted to throw up.

He felt somebody sit down beside him and heard Kelly's voice. "Hey, you okay?"

Casey moaned and responded, "This is the most exhausting vacation I've ever been on."

"What's the matter, you didn't like the amusement park?"

"I've never been on a roller coaster in my life, and after that experience, I'm never doing it again," Casey told him.

Kelly laughed and said teasingly, "Poor baby," and leaned over and kissed Casey on the forehead.

"Between that, and getting sunburned on the beach, and nearly drowning at that water park," Casey recounted the day's events.

"And getting rear ended for two hours on the bumper cars," Kelly added.

"And sideswiped all around the track on the go-karts...I'm looking forward to going home and jumping into a structure fire," Casey told him.

Kelly chuckled and replied, "Yeah well I hope you saved some energy for the rest of the night when it's just you two alone."

Casey groaned and pressed his face against the tabletop. "What else is there left to do? We went everywhere today, we did everything."

"Well you two could just wander around the hotel, they've got a casino, a video arcade, an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, a jacuzzi, doesn't that sound good after getting knocked around on the Scrambler?"

Casey laughed miserably.

"I don't know about this, Kelly."

"Aren't you having a good time?"

"I've had a great time, but it's been the four of us all day, I don't know what'll happen when we're alone," Casey confessed.

"Well I'll make it easier for you," Kelly told him, "Phoebe and I'll go back to her room, you take Melaina back to ours."

"That's not what I had in mind," Casey replied.

"Yeah, but it could work, and if it doesn't, you know how to reach me. But I know you'll be fine, trust me."

Kelly knocked on the hotel room door, from inside a voice called out, "Who is it?"

Kelly swiped the key card and entered the room, which he noticed right away was bigger than the one he and Casey were staying in.

"Phoebe?"

"In here," a voice called off from another room.

Kelly headed to the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. The redheaded woman was laying on a king sized bed with her ankle bandaged and propped on a pillow.

"What're you doing here?" she asked.

"We had a date tonight," Kelly said.

Phoebe gestured to her foot and pointed out, "I seem to recall throwing my ankle out earlier this evening when we got back from Family Kingdom, I think that took care of our plans."

"Well plans change," Kelly said as he set a brown paper bag with a bottle of chilled wine in it on the dresser, "We'll just skip the first part and go straight to bed."

The woman laughed as the firefighter charged towards her and jumped on the other side of the bed.

"You really are something, you know that?" she asked.

"So I've been told. Besides, I figured I'd leave our room vacant so if Casey and Melaina decide to hit it off, they'd have some privacy."

"Speaking of which, how'd you get in here?" his date asked him.

"I stole her key card as they were heading out," Kelly held it out in offering.

"At least she remembered it this time, she's always forgetting her keys."

The two of them looked at each other for a minute before Kelly asked her, "So, what do you want to do?"

She smiled coyly at him and replied, "Well I don't know what you want to do, but before you came I was in the middle of a word jumble." She picked up a puzzle book and opened it to the page she'd been on and asked him, "What's this word look like to you?"

Kelly cocked his head at an angle and actually found himself trying to sound out the answer, none of which sounded remotely right. The two passed the evening drinking wine, watching TV and talking. After a couple hours Kelly got quiet and stared straight ahead with a somber look on his face.

"Hey, you alright?" Phoebe asked.

"Huh?" Kelly snapped back to attention, "Oh sorry, just thinking of something."

"Any guesses what?" she asked.

"Casey."

"Oh boy," Phoebe pushed up on her hands and scooted away from him by a couple inches, "This isn't one of those love triangle things, is it?"

Kelly did a double take. "No, definitely not. It's just that this is his first time out with a woman since his wife died last year."

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," she said.

"Well...we found out after the fact that she...she was horrible to him...I mean she should've been in jail for what she did to him...and we had no idea...so he has a lot of expectations riding on this date and I'm just hoping he's not setting himself up for failure," Kelly explained. He hadn't planned to tell anyone about what happened while they were in South Carolina for the week, but for some reason he didn't see any threat in telling her that much of the truth anyway.

"So what exactly is he hoping for?" Phoebe asked.

Kelly rolled his eyes towards her in a knowing manner. "Trying to prove something to himself. It's been a hell of a year and he wants to find someone that isn't going to treat him like crap."

"Well Melaina's about as good a candidate as any in that regard," Phoebe told him. "That's her problem, she's too nice. A few years ago she was with this real prick, let him walk all over her, finally left his ass, thank God...you know, this is the first vacation we've taken together since she married that jerk." She laughed, "This sure ain't how I planned to spend my vacation. I guess nothing ever really turns out like you plan."

"That's what worries me," Severide murmured to himself.

Casey pulled back from Melaina and saw her eyes open in mild surprise. "What is it?" she asked.

"Sorry," he said as he moved away from her and sat up and pressed his knees to his chest and looked out towards the ocean. They'd come back to the beach, which was largely vacant that night, and everything had been going so well, until they started kissing, then a big red flag flashed through his mind.

"What's wrong?" his date asked as she sat up beside him.

"I can't do this," he answered.

Melaina adjusted her seated position beside Matt and shrugged her shoulders, "This is a first, usually guys don't say that until after they see my Caesarean scar."

Whatever Casey was about to say took the backseat as he turned to her and asked, "You have a kid?"

"I did, when I was 15," she answered. "She's in college now."

"Sorry, I didn't know," Casey said.

"Wasn't what I had planned, but it all worked out," she replied, then added, "But that dumb son of a bitch doctor botched the C-section and the suture job as well..." she motioned her hands up and down the sides of her black one piece swimsuit with blue flowers and said, "there's a reason all my swimsuits are one pieces, and why I don't usually go out in public without a control top."

Casey didn't know what to say, but he told her, "This isn't you, it's me...I...don't think I can do this."

"Do what?"

He looked at her, "I don't think I can go for a casual fling...if we weren't going back to Chicago in a few days maybe I..." he sighed, "I was married...my wife died last year."

"Oh my God," Melaina said, "I'm so sorry."

Casey fought with a small laugh that still came up. "Don't be...it was a bad marriage...I don't think she ever..." he shook his head, "I won't bore you with the details. It's just that this is the first time I've been on a date with a woman since it happened...and...I just don't think I can do this."

Melaina inched closer towards him and inquired, "And by 'this', you mean at all, or just the end result?"

"I like you," he told her, "I think I lo..." he cut off the sentence and looked back out towards the ocean. "But I can't start a relationship that's not going anywhere. My fiancee died, my wife died, and I can't stand getting involved with someone else who in a week isn't going to be there anymore. I'm sorry."

Melaina scooted even closer against Casey and said to him, "I can understand that...but, is there any reason we can't just be friends for the rest of the week and hang out together?"

Casey turned towards her and asked, "You'd be alright with that?"

"I like you too, Matt," she told him. "If I came to Chicago sometime, is there any reason I couldn't look you up?"

He shook his head.

"Well it's something to keep in mind," she said. "In the meantime I'm sure there's plenty more we can do on this beach before we go our separate ways."

Casey took a moment to let everything sink in, and he asked her, "So what do you want to do now?"

Kelly heard a banging noise, and first thought it was part of a dream then he realized that meant he'd fallen asleep. He opened his eyes and saw the lights were still on in the hotel room, and turning his head saw Phoebe asleep on the other end of the king sized bed, still with her foot propped up. She also started to wake up at the sudden noise coming from the room door out in the main suite.

"What time is it?" she asked.

Kelly reached over and grabbed the clock on the nightstand. "12:30."

"A.M. or P.M.?" she asked with a tired moan.

"I don't know," Kelly put the clock down and swung his feet onto the floor and stood up. He headed out to the main room and stepped towards the door that sounded like somebody was trying to break it down.

"Yeah yeah yeah, hold on," Kelly said with a yawn as he unlocked the door. "Who is it anyway?"

It was Casey and Melaina, both of whom charged into the room, Melaina made a beeline into the bedroom and flopped on the other side of the king and the room came alive with the chatter of both women discussing how the night had gone.

"What happened?" Kelly turned to Casey curiously.

"You took the key, remember?" Casey asked.

"Oh...what're you doing here?" Kelly asked.

"I'm doomed to a lifetime of platonic relationships with women," Casey said.

"Then why didn't you two go back to our room?" Kelly asked. At the look Casey shot him he replied, "What? It's not like anything would happen, right?"

Casey's response was a sharp jab in the stomach, which momentarily had Kelly doubled over moaning.

"Hey Matt," Melaina reappeared in the doorway, "Why don't you guys stay the night?"

"Oh I don't think so," Casey was adamant, "we wouldn't want to crowd in on you."

"Have you seen that bed?" Kelly asked. "We could fit the whole Truck company in there and still have room."