A day later, Severide still had no idea what to make of anything that had taken place, and it was still way too confusing for him to even think about bringing anybody else in on. He'd tried talking to Casey, called several times over the course of the day, and never heard back from him. The day passed slowly and excruciatingly. Kelly passed the day trying to think what possible explanation there could be for Casey lying to him about where he'd been, and going to talk to Voight of all people. If it was something 51 had to help Intelligence with again, they all would've been brought in on it, the fact that Voight only seemed to bring Casey in on whatever it was didn't set well with Severide, but for the life of him he couldn't come up with any answer that made sense.

That night, Kelly tried calling Casey again, and it just went to voicemail again. He decided he'd head over to Casey's apartment and talk to him face to face, hoping he could start getting some answers about what was going on.

Casey's truck was parked at the curb, for that matter so were several other vehicles, so Kelly had to park around the corner. He walked around to the front of the building, went up the steps and knocked on the door. There was no response. He put his ear to the door, there was no sound coming from inside the apartment either. Where the hell was Casey? Kelly sighed in defeat as he headed down the stairs and walked back towards his truck. Just as he was turning the corner, a set of oncoming headlights lit up the street, he turned and the beams blinded him and he had to step back and shield his eyes to make out a black car that stopped in the lane beside the parked cars. The passenger side door opened and the lights came on inside the car, and Kelly felt himself falling down the rabbit hole again. It was Voight's car and Casey was in the passenger seat. The two of them were talking about something but couldn't be heard over the noise of the engine sitting idle. Casey moved to get out, then turned back towards Voight and-

Kelly officially felt his brain exploding in his skull. Casey leaned over to the driver's seat and the two men embraced. Voight was saying something to Casey but Severide couldn't hear it, but whatever it was he could see Matt nodding his head in response before pulling away from the Intelligence sergeant. He got out of Voight's car and headed up to the front door and the black car pulled away and disappeared in the traffic. Casey unlocked his door, went in and shut it behind him, and Severide was left standing at the corner at a total loss for any explanation of what he'd just witnessed. Any previous thought about going up there and confronting Casey about what was going on just went out the window because at that moment he felt like a zombie barely even able to straggle along. He didn't even remember getting to his car, getting in his car, or how he got home that night, but he found himself back at his own apartment, pacing the living room floor, trying to make some sense of what he'd seen, and coming up empty on all counts.

Nothing was making any sense. Something had to be wrong somewhere. Correction, everything had to be wrong. What the hell was going on, and why was Casey lying to him about what he was doing, and why was he with Voight at those times that he was, and what, above all else Severide wanted to know what the hell Casey was doing with Voight? That last thought alone painted a very disturbing image in Kelly's head he wished he could bleach out of his mind. No, no, no, definitely not, there was no way in hell that Casey could be...but then back to the original question what were they doing and what were they doing that Casey had to lie about where he was and who he was with?

Ever since they'd gotten off shift, Kelly had had a migraine that could've killed an elephant, this new revelation of events just made his headache even worse than before. He sat down on the couch and tried to look at this logically. He didn't have any idea where to start, because there was nothing logical about it.

He replayed the events of the last few days in his mind. First Casey calls and blows off their plans for the night. The same night, Severide sees him in a bar with Voight and the two seemed to be living it up, as if they were old friends. Two days later Casey comes on shift edgy and frantic and sporting a very large bruise on his face he went to great lengths to hide from everyone, wouldn't say one word about where it actually came from, or what had happened the other night. Then that night he's outside the station on his phone with somebody insisting he has to see them, insisting he didn't tell anybody...tell anybody about what? And now this...they pull up in Voight's car and Casey hugged the cop who made his life hell several years ago.

Kelly knew how it all looked, but he played the facts over in his mind that he knew to be true. Casey was straight. That was not debatable. He may not have had the best track record with women or longstanding relationships, but he was as straight as they came. And yet...the more Kelly looked at his behavior the last few days, the more he knew what it looked like and he was having a progressively harder time coming up with any logical alternatives to what seemed most likely. Still it was just too far fetched to believe, Casey...and Hank Voight? No, it couldn't be, it just couldn't be, there was no way in hell that...and yet...unfortunately they'd had enough experience getting caught in domestic disputes on calls, that Kelly could recognize the signs for what they looked like.

As impossible as it was to believe and as sickening as it was to even entertain the thought of, the answer most likely was that Casey was in fact in some kind of relationship with Voight...and if Kelly had to guess...a violent relationship. And if it was true, and Kelly just about puked at the idea of it being true, but if it was, then it was no wonder Casey was so on edge. For one thing, he couldn't let anybody at 51, or the 21st, or anywhere in between, find out about this. But secondly, if it was, then he had no way out. If he had somehow gotten involved with Voight and the cop was beating the hell out of him, Casey had no options, he couldn't report it, Voight's own people wouldn't believe him and wouldn't do anything about it, they all knew how he worked.

It still made no sense to Kelly but at the same time he couldn't come up with another explanation for what was going on. The whole thing was just a nightmare, and Kelly wasn't sure what the way out of it was. As tempted as he was to just fly off the handle and confront Casey about it all, he knew he couldn't. As much as he hated to, he knew he had to stand back and get something more concrete before he could accuse anybody of anything, but he wasn't sure if he'd be able to last that long. Clearly something was wrong, Casey was in some kind of trouble and didn't feel he had anybody he could turn to for help, but they'd butted heads on enough issues over the years Severide knew Matt would not appreciate Kelly stampeding in like a raging bull and trying to take over the situation, no matter how good his intentions were. Kelly really felt himself stuck between that rock and hard place, he needed to help his friend but he didn't know how and he couldn't tell anyone else about it.

More questions started pouring into his head. If this was true, how did it happen? Surely Casey didn't just wake up one day and decide he wanted to be involved with a man, and especially not Voight of all people. But did that mean that he actually wasn't as straight as Severide and everybody else for that matter, just naturally assumed he was? He'd known Casey for nearly 20 years, he'd think in that amount of time he would've known if there were any...then again, what would he know? Casey had been on his guard from the moment they met and he was very big on self preservation, he surely wouldn't let something like that slip out that could've very easily made his candidacy days more of a hell for him than they already were. In theory, all firehouses were supposed to be family, but they all knew from personal experience over the years that was not the case and sometimes you wound up with some really shitty people to work under, for whom it wouldn't be anything to take somebody's most private details of their life and exploit it to everybody in the House for their own personal amusement. Everybody had taken fairly well to Leslie Shay's announcement that she was a lesbian, though Severide had still been convinced in the beginning he could change her mind, that was before he actually got to know her. But for one thing, Shay was a paramedic, for another she was a woman and even though in this day and age they were supposed to be so big on equal treatment, everybody knew the women on Ambo still got treated with slightly lighter gloves. One of the guys on their companies, it very likely would not have been the same case, and Kelly knew it. No indeed if in fact Casey had any inklings about him that were not 100% heterosexual, he definitely would not let anyone else at CFD be privy to that little detail, and Kelly couldn't blame him, if it were true. Those were the big questions, if it was all true, if this was correct, he had no way of knowing and wasn't sure what he was bound to find just by hanging back and watching to see what happened next, but unfortunately that was about all he could do for the time being. That, and, much as he was sure Casey would reject it, continue to offer his support to Matt for whatever was going on.

Suddenly another, even more sickening thought occurred to Kelly that hadn't previously entered into the equation. Maybe Casey wasn't a willing participant in this at all. None of them knew much about Voight's private life, they knew he had been married, he'd had a son, what did that prove? Maybe he in fact was coercing Casey into this, but why? Just to prove he still had the upper hand on the lieutenant and could destroy him in an instant? There was no doubt in anybody's mind that Voight was a sick bastard because over time everybody had seen first hand some of the stuff he was capable of doing, but could he actually be that sick?

Kelly went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, with all the ideas running through his head, sleep was definitely not on the schedule for tonight.

Casey wasn't as wiry on the next shift, though he still tended to avoid eye contact with most people, and again, nobody but Severide seemed to notice. The two had a moment alone in the locker room as they were getting ready and Kelly asked him, "How's the eye?"

"Better," Casey said simply. "Few more days and nobody will know the difference."

"No I mean when you went to the eye doctor."

"Oh, right," Casey turned around. "Turns out what I had in it was a piece of steel."

"Holy crap."

"Got it out pretty easily. It hasn't hurt since then, but I still have to put medicated drops in twice a day."

"Where are they?" Kelly asked.

"In my bag, I don't want people asking questions about what happened."

"All the stuff that flies around during a fire, it's not so weird to get debris in your eye," Kelly pointed out.

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not talk about it," Casey said.

"Okay, fine."

Kelly sighed to himself as he saw this conversation was off to a roaring stop. He wasn't sure where to go from here but he felt like if he didn't find a way to keep the ball rolling and get some answers, his head was going to explode. That image was still seared into his memory, Casey and Voight. There weren't even any words to begin on that one.

"Uh..." he tried to think of something to keep the conversation going, "I tried calling you last night, just got your voicemail."

"Oh, sorry about that," Casey responded, a bit too quickly.

Kelly paused, Casey didn't elaborate. "Were you out?"

"No," Casey answered. "I had a migraine, I shut off my phone and had an early night."

It was killing Severide not to flat out yell at Casey 'I know you're lying' but he knew he couldn't do that.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah...I get headaches, Kelly."

"And you get into bar fights," he responded uncertainly.

Casey's eyes narrowed. "You trying to say something?"

"Just curious, maybe one has something to do with the other, you been to a doctor?"

"I'm fine, Kelly...just a little bruised."

"You're sure."

"Positive."

"Okay then," Kelly gave up. Casey wasn't going to tell him anything. "Uh, that rain check to go out still good? How about tomorrow night?"

Casey turned back towards him. "Sorry, I can't make it." Before Severide could say anything, he added, "I've got a construction job set up, gonna take as much daylight as I'll get tomorrow and then some."

"Need some help?" Kelly offered.

"No, thanks...it's fairly easy, just time consuming," Casey answered, not the boldest faced lie he'd ever told, but to anybody not paying enough attention, they would've bought it.

The frustration growing in Severide was just about to boil over, all he wanted to do was lash out and shake Casey and make him talk, but he couldn't. Whatever trouble Casey was in, Severide knew how important it was not to drive him away, which he knew was exactly what would happen if he handled the situation like he so desperately wanted to.

Casey had turned away from Kelly, Severide reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder, and Matt jumped with a pronounced yelp of shock.

"Sorry," Kelly drew his hand back. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Fine, I'm fine," Casey insisted. "Just surprised me."

Now that Kelly got another look at him, it looked like Casey hadn't slept at all last night, he was clearly on edge, something had him worried, and it took all Kelly's self restraint not to grab him and tell him everything was going to be okay, that he would help him figure out whatever was going on. Keeping what he knew to himself was killing him, but he wasn't going to risk Casey panicking and completely shutting him out, right now the door was definitely closed but there was a chance it'd open when the time was right. Kelly just wished he knew what it was.

Kelly opened his eyes. Things had been at a lull so he laid on his bunk to close his eyes for a minute, he checked the clock and realized he'd been out for half an hour. He got up, went over to Casey's quarters and saw the room was empty. He headed to the common room, everybody was there except Matt.

"Where's Casey?" he asked.

"He had to step out for a few minutes, he got it cleared with Boden," Herrmann answered.

And what the hell did that mean? Step out where, for what, and more importantly, to see whom? And why?

It was only 15 minutes before Casey returned, but to Severide it felt like he waited an hour. He was on the apparatus floor when Casey finally got back, and he noticed Matt looked even more frazzled now than he had earlier.

"Casey-"

"I'm fine, Severide," Casey snapped as he passed by the Squad lieutenant, "just drop it."

Even though Kelly knew Casey's aggravation was just a front to cover what was really going on with him, his lashing out was barbed enough Severide actually felt shaken to the bones. All the same he turned and followed after Casey, who ducked into the locker room.

"Casey, what's going on? What hap-" Kelly suddenly forgot what he was saying when he got a glimpse at Casey leaning against his locker, visibly upset, his breathing shaky and he looked on the verge of tears.

All of that took a backseat to the rage that Casey was now exhibiting as he glared daggers at Severide and yelled at him, "Dammit Severide, drop it already and leave me alone!"

Kelly didn't remember the next thing he said, or did, but whatever it was, Casey took it as a threat enough to warrant punching Kelly in the face, which knocked him back against another row of lockers.

The commotion that ensued brought everybody running to see what was going on, and quickly moved to pull the two lieutenants off of each other.

"What is going on here?" Boden demanded to know.

Kelly had found himself practically in a choke hold by half the guys from 51, the other half containing Casey so they were in mutual corners, he looked over at Casey, on the surface there was a fire in his eyes, but under the surface Kelly could recognize the sheer terror. Whatever was going on, Casey was scared out of his mind and that's why he was trying to get Severide off his case.

"Nothing," he insisted, "just a little misunderstanding...won't happen again, Chief, I swear."

Wallace grimly nodded and responded, "For both your sakes, I hope so."

One by one everybody let go of the two men and walked out of the locker room to leave it to them to sort out. Casey's response was to storm out without a word.

Kelly stayed behind and took a minute to think about everything. He felt like he was losing his mind. And before they had him committed, he decided he was going to get to the bottom of this himself, and he was going to get the answers at any cost, and when they got off shift, he was going to get them straight from the source.