A/N: Last chapter, thanks to everybody who read and reviewed, I hope you've enjoyed this story!
"So what happened?" Kelly had shown himself in to the bathroom while Casey was in the shower, trying to get every last grain of sand off of his skin.
The curtain pulled back enough for Matt to stick his head out and he explained, "I told her the truth. I like her but I don't see this going anywhere and I don't want to start something just for it to end like that."
"And she still suggested coming back here?" Kelly asked.
Casey just shrugged his shoulder in response.
"Well I know how hard this was for you, I'm proud of you, Casey," Kelly told him.
Casey didn't say anything but the look on his face told Severide everything. Honestly, after everything that he went through a year ago, Kelly was just thrilled that this far down the line, Casey could take a shower without having a panic attack and he didn't still have to wrangle the guy into the bathroom.
"I still feel like an idiot about the whole thing," Casey admitted. "I really like her, why is this so hard?"
Kelly looked at him and responded, "I don't think there's anything wrong with forgiving Gabby for what she did to you, but it doesn't mean you're over what happened."
"But it's been so long, I need to get my life back," Casey told him.
"I know...it's just going to take a little longer than you planned."
Casey nodded his head towards the bathroom door, "And in the process I lose out on something great because of my own hangups."
"Hey, she invited you to stay the night," Kelly reminded him. "Maybe all hope's not lost after all."
"Kelly, it's the four of us in the same bed," Casey pointed out. "That's not my idea of getting lucky."
Severide merely shrugged and replied, "Don't knock it till you try it. You might be surprised."
"I wake up looking at your ugly face again," Casey murmured the next morning as he and Kelly both started to wake up from the sunlight pouring in the windows. "Oh yeah, I'm real surprised."
Kelly blinked his eyes a few times to focus and craned his neck and saw that the two of them were sandwiched between their dates who were still out cold on the opposite ends of the bed. He wasn't sure at first what had happened but as he thought about it, certain events of the night started coming back, most of them involving the four of them crammed in the bed watching TV as they emptied the contents of the room's mini bar.
Casey slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked around at the other occupants of the bed and turned to Severide with a simultaneously curious and amused expression about their situation. The two firefighters quietly scooted to the end of the bed to get out of there without climbing over their dates, they left the room and went to head back to their own.
"Do you remember what happened last night?" Kelly asked.
"Not really," Casey answered as they headed to the elevator, "but I feel like I need another shower."
Kelly chuckled in response.
By the time Casey and Severide met up with their dates again later that morning in the hotel lobby, they quickly found out that any plans they'd had for the day had been rained out, literally. They looked at the glass doors and watched the scenery outside get beaten down by a torrential downpour. Somewhere in the distance Casey could swear he heard thunder overhead.
"This is just terrific," he grumbled as they moved away from the doors.
"You think you're disappointed?" Melaina told him. "I just took three months of surfing lessons for zip."
"Just as well," Phoebe replied as she limped along, "I doubt I'd get too far out there anyway."
The four of them made their way into the dining area and sat at a table, Phoebe commented, "Well somebody better come up with something or this is going to be a long and boring day."
Kelly didn't miss the look on Casey's face and half felt like crawling under the table. "Sorry, Casey."
"We fly a thousand miles to get away from the rain and the cold, and we're stuck in a monsoon," Casey replied.
"I said I'm sorry."
"Oh well," Casey turned in his seat and added, "At least the company's an improvement."
The rain continued for three days and during that time Casey and Severide and their dates made the most of their stay frequenting the hotel's indoor pool, the casino, heading out to night clubs in the area. Casey never had any clear memory of how they got back to the hotel at night, or anything that happened afterwards, which made for some interesting mornings when he woke up and saw either all four of them were still in the bed, or somehow during the night Kelly rolled out and landed on the floor in a heap, which nobody else in the room had heard, one morning he woke up and he and Melaina were the only two in bed, he leaned over and saw Kelly and Phoebe had crawled under the bed with only their feet sticking out. Casey turned back over and moved closer to the blonde woman sleeping three feet from him. Despite the setback of the weather, he'd been enjoying their vacation and he hated to see it end soon. He really liked Melaina, and when he looked back and realized how close he'd gotten to her in a few days, how safe he felt around her, something he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to do with a woman again, the first time he'd been out with a woman in years, the first one he'd been with since Gabby died, he felt like he'd just scaled a mountain without noticing it.
He wished they wouldn't be going their separate ways in a few days, he wished there was some way that this relationship could continue, and he could see how far it actually went. Thinking back, he remembered Kelly's comment about a stepping stone to get him back into the dating scene. And he still resented that idea. He didn't want to think what had happened over the past week had been a 'stepping stone', something to give him a boost but had no real hope of becoming anything. He didn't want to, but he knew the truth was soon enough he'd go back to Chicago, she'd go back to wherever she came from, and they'd never see each other again. As much as that fact hurt him, Casey knew he'd always be grateful to this beautiful woman who had helped him, who allowed him to jump in and take a chance and not feel like it was just a matter of time before the past repeated itself and he couldn't trust anyone again. He was determined to leave that part of his life buried with Gabby at her grave, unfortunately he knew it would take a while to accomplish, but he looked at the blonde woman sleeping next to him with a small smile on her face, and considered this one giant hurdle he'd already cleared. He really thought he was going to be okay now.
Casey leaned over and lightly pressed his lips against Melaina's forehead, and quietly told the sleeping woman, "I love you. I'll miss you."
2 months later-
Nobody at 51 noticed their visitor until the blonde woman in blue jeans and a black leather jacket was halfway up the apparatus floor. The card game quickly came to a halt as everybody sat up and took notice.
"Hi," she addressed the men sitting at the table, "Does Matt Casey work here?"
Everybody merely nodded and pointed in the general direction of his quarters.
"Oh-kay," she said, "thank you." She walked past the table and called out, "Hi, Kelly!" as the Squad lieutenant returned from the bathroom.
"Hi-ah," Kelly turned and did a double take as he recognized the woman he'd automatically responded to.
"Who was that?" Cruz asked once she was out of earshot.
Kelly turned back to the others and was dumbstruck for a few seconds before his brain finally knew how to put together the words, "A woman we met back in Myrtle Beach."
Casey heard someone knocking at the door and craned his head up from the incident report he was working on, and felt his eyes double in size at the sight of Melaina on the other side of the glass. He quickly stood up as she turned the doorknob and came in.
"Hi, Matt."
"What're you doing here?" he asked in disbelief.
"You said to look you up if I was in Chicago, is that offer still good?" she asked.
Casey was so dumbstruck he couldn't even talk, could only stammer for a few seconds before he finally responded, "Uh, yeah, it is...it's...it's great to see you again."
The blonde woman smiled at him and replied, "It's good to see you too. I was hoping I wasn't too late and you'd found somebody else."
A choked snort was Casey's response. The truth was he'd had a few dates since returning to Chicago, all casual, most ended on the first night. He'd been on a couple blind dates, he'd even tried a speed dating service, he honestly hadn't minded that none of them had panned out, as far as he'd been concerned he was finding his rhythm again.
"Not hardly," he answered, and flashed a toothy smile at her before it turned to a look of confusion as he asked her again, "But what are you doing here?"
"It turns out her great aunt died, who she hadn't seen for about 20 years, who it turns out made her sole heir of her property, which just so happens to be some antique house right here in Chicago," Casey explained to Kelly later during shift as they had a cigar break on the apparatus floor.
"You believe that?"
"If not, that's a hell of a story to make a thousand mile trip on," Casey told him. "Actually she asked if I could come over and look over the place, see what needs fixing up."
"I've heard of working relationships but that's a new one," Severide said with a laugh.
Casey shook his head, "Nothing like that."
"Not yet. Weren't you the one saying if you two could actually be together you'd pursue this?" Kelly asked.
"Could be," Casey puffed dismissively in an 'I don't recall that' tone.
"What's wrong?"
Casey looked at him through the corner of his eye and said, "She just showed up, she just got to town, it's all too new."
"Casey, this is me you're talking to," Kelly felt a need to remind him. "Now what's really going on?"
Matt looked at him, took a nervous puff off the cigar and glanced down at the floor as he answered, "She liked me when she knew there wasn't any chance of this working out...now there is...what if it doesn't?"
"What if it does?" Kelly shrugged his shoulders.
"What if it doesn't?" Casey asked. "It's not like I thought she'd drop her whole life and move to Chicago just so that could happen...but...don't say it."
"Say what?"
"I guess the last couple months I was just hoping that something would happen and she could come here..." Casey explained.
Kelly shrugged again, not getting it. "And now she is...so what's the problem?"
"What if she can't handle the baggage that comes with me?" Casey asked.
Kelly's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. "Like what, your mom, your whole extended family at 51?"
"No! You know what," Casey told him. "Everything I went through with Gabby, everything I'm still going through now that she's gone...what if she can't handle it?"
Kelly took a slow drag off his cigar as he mulled that one over, and finally replied, "What if she can?"
"I don't think it's very likely, Kelly."
"You don't know."
"What if she can't? What if it's all for nothing and I'm alone again?" Casey asked.
Kelly thought that one over as well for a few seconds, and said determinedly, "Then you'll come over to my place and we'll pick up the pieces. That's all there is to it. But right now you got that woman practically delivered into your lap, you're an idiot if you don't at least take the chance."
Casey thought about what Severide said, and nodded uncertainly.
"Now what?" Melaina asked when he pulled away from her again.
Casey looked at her and couldn't come up with any words other than, "Sorry."
He'd spent the last couple weeks off shift helping Melaina get her aunt's house fixed up, and now that the place was actually inhabitable again, he'd decided he was out of excuses not to go forward with this. They'd had a quiet intimate dinner, a couple of drinks, and as the night wore on they'd gotten notably closer on the couch, and finally they'd kissed. And now this.
"What's wrong?" the blonde woman asked.
Casey tried to answer, but couldn't at first, then all he could come up with is, "...I don't think I can do this."
Melaina looked puzzled for a second, then her face brightened up as she said with a chuckle, "Oh I get it, you just remembered about my C-section."
"No, it's not that...definitely not that," Casey didn't want her to think what was happening, or rather not happening, was her fault in any way. He sat up straighter on the couch and told her, "Something I need to show you."
"Now you're not gonna tell me you have one too," she said cynically.
A small laugh escaped him. "No...nothing like that...uh..." he stood up and said, "Something I need you to see before this goes any further...then you can decide if it does go any further or not."
"It's not what it looks like," Casey said as he pulled up his jeans, "I know that's what everybody says, but it's not."
Melaina hadn't said a word so far, she looked up at him from where she sat on the couch and said, "They look old...it's really none of my business."
"No...I want to be honest about this..." Casey had never wanted anything less, but he knew it was important.
In general Casey didn't consider himself to be an overly self conscious person. His job had awarded him with more than his fair share of scars during his career, over years most of them had faded and were no longer so noticeable to the unsuspecting eye. Others would take a few more years to become that inconspicuous. That didn't bother him. The bane of his self esteem was, and had been, and always would be for the rest of his life, those damn needle marks Gabby had left him with. It couldn't have been anymore torturous for him than if she'd branded him for the whole world to see, it already felt like they did.
"I told you about my wife, she died over a year ago."
Melaina nodded. She remembered.
"She was a paramedic," Casey sat back down on the couch, leaving a cushion in between them, "I found out a few months before she died, that she'd been drugging me...stealing stuff out of the ambulance, she was experimenting, wanted to see what kind of reactions I had to...medication I didn't need...and it went from pills, to needles...insulin, she was good at covering things up for a while, but towards the end she got careless and started giving me overdoses...stuff that counteracted with each other...the night she died, I was trying to get away from her...she chased me down an alley, and we were caught in a shooting...she was hit...died instantly."
The blonde woman was silent through all this and when she finally spoke, she told him, "I don't really have any idea what to say...I can't imagine what that must've been like for you."
Casey took in a shaky breath and forced himself to continue, "As bad as it was, what was worse was people finding out. I just wanted to crawl under a rock and die...and I...you...I hadn't been out with anyone since she died...what we had in Myrtle Beach...I really liked you, and I wanted it to work, but I wasn't sure what would happen if I told you...it was just easier to try and break it off before anything happened...and now you're here..." he shrugged helplessly, "I couldn't run from this anymore...so...now you know...and whatever you decide to do...if you don't want to get involved...I understand."
There was a heavy silence in the air between them once he finished, he could hardly even look her in the eyes, awaiting her response.
Melaina sat on the couch, one leg draped over the other, one foot kicking mindlessly in the air as she took this in. Finally she turned to him and asked, "You want to see my Caesarean scar?"
Casey closed his eyes, raised his hands to his face and just about doubled over laughing.
3 months later-
A gasp caught in Casey's throat as he shot up in bed and opened his eyes. The room was dark, he looked around, expecting to see Gabby. He'd heard her voice...he'd heard her coming to the bedroom, he knew she had another drug cocktail mixed and ready to administer.
The room was dark, it was silent, there was nothing except the sound of his labored breathing, and his pounding heart.
Then the rustle of the sheets as somebody on the other side of the bed moved.
"He-e-y," a tired voice said as Melaina sat up, "what is it?"
Casey looked around the room again. Gabby wasn't there. Gabby was dead. She'd been dead for a year and a half now. She was gone, and she could never come back.
"Nothing," Casey shook his head as he settled back down, "go back to sleep."
A tired hum caught halfway in Melaina's throat as she also laid back down and pulled the covers back up.
Casey lay there for a minute looking up at the ceiling, knowing he'd go back to sleep soon, almost wishing he wasn't.
The nightmares about Gabby didn't come often...he wished one day they'd finally disappear forever, but he knew that wasn't likely, but he'd taken them in stride just like all the other nightmares that had plagued him in his career. The people in the fires he couldn't save, the dead bodies pulled from the wrecks, they had all been real at one time, and would always be real for him, but if he couldn't let those take over his life, he couldn't let the memories of Gabby haunt him forever either.
Something cold and metal touched him. Casey's eyes widened for a second, then he relaxed as he realized it was the ring on Melaina's finger. Her engagement ring. He'd asked her, and she said yes. They were going to be married.
The blonde woman turned over and her weight pressed against Casey, her arm draped over his chest, the cold metal of her ring touching his shoulder. Casey lightly grabbed her hand in his, raised it towards his face and kissed her on the knuckles just under the ring. He felt secure with her sleeping against him, he smiled as he felt her so called 'pouch' pressed against his ribs.
Casey wanted to laugh. A flood of emotions were rushing through him, somewhere in the midst of them all was a bittersweet melancholy as he realized, not for the first time in his life, but feeling more definite than it had when he was 18, or 20, or 21, or 25, or 30, that he was actually grown up, and getting older.
When he was younger he'd heard all the jokes of younger single guys vs. older married guys, and even not being married yet, he knew it was true. Everybody always said they only cared what was inside a person, most people might've actually believed that to some degree, but he knew there weren't a lot of young guys, especially ones who were not fathers themselves, who wouldn't pick a 'perfect' woman over one whose body was a roadmap of motherhood. And even though he had his own preferences of what he liked to look at, he had been able to admit to himself, as well as his fiancee, that he loved her stomach that had been left permanently stuck out from her botched procedure, still 20 years later with a vertical scar clear down the middle. She'd been very open early on in their relationship about all her imperfections, both the ones she took pride in as proof that she'd survived, and the ones that annoyed the hell out of her that she'd learned to live with. She'd explained as much as she loved her daughter, and being a mom, and how proud she was of her daughter, she still wanted to wring the neck of the doctor who had left her abdomen in her own words 'permanently gooked out' and, when her control top came off, made her look fat no matter what she did or how fit the rest of her body was. Casey didn't care, even though he knew the odds were good any kids of their own wasn't too likely, he loved the way her body looked, and felt, both in and out of clothes.
It was definitely true that his sex life with Melaina wasn't as wild and dirty as it had been with Hallie when he was in his 20s and early 30s, he didn't care. It was still hot and heavy, but the word that actually summed it up best, even though he knew it didn't sound right, was comfortable, something he never thought would be possible after Gabby, being with Melaina just felt right, felt like he actually belonged with her, as if they were fated to be with each other. He'd felt the same way with Hallie, but it had been a rocky trip with a lot of ups and downs...part of it was time and age and experience, part of it was that careers weren't on the line by if they did have kids or not...when it was all added up, Casey felt ten times as sure that they were meant to be together than he'd felt when he and Hallie were together, and that they would make it.
After their first date back in South Carolina, Casey had found himself in Severide's arms, who was trying to restrain him from tearing the room apart in frustration that things hadn't gone as planned. Kelly had promised at the time if things didn't work out, he would help Casey pick up the pieces. Casey had recently found himself at Kelly's apartment in the middle of the night, in his best friend's arms once again, but for a different reason.
It had been the night he asked Melaina to marry him. He knew it wasn't really normal to spend the night with your best friend after proposing to your girlfriend, but he had to see Kelly. He didn't remember making the trip across town, he just remembered collapsing against Kelly, delirious with relief, that she had said yes. He'd hoped she would, but he'd been expecting her to say no, and when that didn't happen, he wasn't sure what to do next. He remembered Kelly laughing at his confusion, not belittling him, just that way Kelly was when something good finally happened, offering his congratulations, wishing them all the best.
"Thanks for everything you did, Kelly," he'd told him, "thanks for getting me through this."
"Hey, what're friends for?" Severide had responded.
"You're the only thing that got me through this past year...and the only thing that kept me from backing out of this."
"I told you you'd be fine."
At the time it seemed too good to be true, and it still did. In time she'd met everybody at 51 and they all seemed to like her, Casey helped her fix up her aunt's house and when it was finished, he'd moved out of his apartment and in with her. All the pieces just seemed to fall in place like part of a master plan.
As much as he'd dreaded what the answer might be to his popping the question, that had actually been the easy part. The hard part for him had actually been telling Melaina that he loved her. He'd said it to her once before, back at their hotel room at the beach, she'd been asleep and hadn't heard him, so she couldn't let him know she didn't feel the same. It was a running gag that men simply could not say those three little words, to Casey, actually giving voice to them had been like jumping the Grand Canyon, so much was riding on how she would respond. For a long time he really never thought he could say 'I love you' to another woman again. Just thinking about it, he would think back to Gabby, to those last few months, when she had a new drug ready to try on him and was waiting for it to take effect. Even now, his own words haunted him remembering those nights.
"Gabby, why are you doing this to me? I love you."
And her answer also haunted him, and that's what terrified him so much about saying those words to someone else.
"I know...and now you're going to prove how much you do."
Just thinking about it, remembering, still made his skin crawl. He still cringed wondering how he could've been so complacent to something like that. He knew he'd already been under the influence when he'd consented to it and probably didn't fully realize what was going on, that didn't make the memories of it any easier to live with.
"Hey," he whispered, nudging Melaina on the shoulder. He felt her eyelashes fluttering against his arm, saw her raising her head to look at him.
"I love you," he said quietly, knowing she wouldn't know what it was about.
He could practically hear her smile as she moved around to adjust the distribution of her weight against him.
"I love you too," she told him.
Casey would swear he could feel his chest swelling. A familiar sensation came over him, one he'd known when Gabby had him on the drugs, of seeing stars and feeling light headed and not being able to see straight, only this time it was the best feeling in the world for him, because it was the sensation of being in love, and it was such an intense feeling for him, because he knew she meant those words. There was no ulterior motive this time, no hidden meaning to anything she did. She loved him, she accepted him as he was, she didn't care about his past, she didn't hold him to any expectations, he didn't have to jump through any hoops to make her happy. Night and day. When he came home from shift, she asked how his day had gone, if he was okay, if everything was alright, she was interested in what was going on with him. When he talked, she listened, when he had an idea, she heard him out, when he said he didn't like something, she was willing to compromise. He tried, and he hoped, that he was just as attentive and supportive of her as she'd been of him. So far Melaina didn't have any complaints, he hoped whatever magic there was between them never died out. As hard as he tried to keep his focus on what he was doing, these days he often found himself laying awake at night, tuning out to the conversations around him, because he couldn't believe the way his life was going now. He was so much in love, and this time loved in return, and he knew it, and he could feel it, and he didn't have to do anything to get it except be himself, that he was so unbelievably happy, almost delirious, he felt like he was walking on a cloud, he could hardly think straight. This time he knew it was a genuine feeling, not the side effects and the after effects of the meds that Gabby kept him strung out on. Back then he couldn't tell the difference in the two, because they'd been hand in hand for so long and he didn't even know it...now he knew the difference, and he wanted to shake his head at the world he was living in back then.
"Hey, go to sleep," Melaina tiredly said.
Casey turned his head to look at her, "How'd you know I wasn't?"
"I can feel you grinning, you pervert," she replied with a groggy laugh, "what're you thinking about?"
He smiled at her even though she couldn't see it, would swear he could feel his cheek bones being pushed up his face by his mouth. "I just can't believe this is happening."
"What?"
"All of this...that you're here...that you said yes."
Now he'd swear he could feel her smiling as she responded, "You better believe it, because I'm not going anywhere."
"Good," Casey leaned over and kissed her. "I love you."
The first time had been the hardest. It was easy to say those words now because he knew whatever she said, it would never be the same thing Gabby said to him.
Melaina hummed tiredly and told him, "I love you too." She moved her hand and poked him in the stomach, drawing a laugh out of him. "Now go to sleep."
He didn't though. Not right away. After he'd felt her rhythmic breathing against him and knew she was asleep again, he still stared up at the ceiling. The scars Gabby had left him with, both physical and emotional, would always be with him, no matter what he tried, he knew this, he'd come to accept this fact, he was still learning to live with them, but they no longer dictated how he lived his life. The night terrors, the memories of those days, might not ever fully leave him either...but he looked at the woman sleeping beside him and he knew at least he wouldn't be facing them alone anymore. For the first time in years, he felt all the things he'd wanted to be with Gabby: wanted, loved, desired, respected, an equal in something, all the mind games and the incessant demands and ultimatums that he'd put up with, they were all gone. And he thought that that was possibly the greatest feeling in the world.
Casey turned slightly on his side and draped his arm across Melaina's back and pulled her closer against him. This was the greatest feeling in the world. With a profound sense of being contented, and safe, and loved, Matt Casey finally closed his eyes, and fell asleep.