A couple hours later, Kelly poked his head in Casey's room and asked him, "How're you doing?" He had no idea if Casey had slept, but there hadn't been any outbursts since he ordered everyone out of the room, so that had to be a sign of improvement.

Casey shifted his attention from the ceiling over him to the man standing in the doorway and said shortly, "I'm fine, I want to go home."

"Did the doctors clear you?"

"I don't need them to clear me, I want to get out of here," Casey said as he pushed back the sheet.

Kelly stepped into the room. "I don't think that's a good idea, Casey."

"I don't give a damn what you think," Casey said as he hurriedly stood up, "I'm getting out of here!"

Casey let out a sudden yell as he moved away from the bed, and in that same instance Severide felt his heart jump in his throat when he saw blood on the bed. He ran over and grabbed Casey just as he started to sway, and his heart jumped back out of his throat and dropped off in his stomach when he realized where the blood had come from.

"Maggie!" he called as he turned around with the full weight of his friend in his arms. Casey was staggering against him and making a series of small incoherent sounds but no words were coming out.

Maggie came running and when she assessed the scene she called for a gurney and for Dr. Halstead. What happened next seemed to occur so quickly that Severide's head was spinning, he tried to ask what was going on but they were suddenly surrounded by orderlies and nurses and Casey was taken out of his arms and lifted onto the gurney, and he tried to fight against it, he struggled with everybody, but he was strapped down to the gurney as they started to wheel him out of the room. Severide tried to ask where Casey was being taken but his head felt like it was in a fog and everything had simultaneously sped up and slowed down all at the same time and nothing was making any sense. The last thing he saw before everybody disappeared down the hall was Casey trying to sit up on the gurney, desperately crying out to him as if for help, "Kelly! KELLY!"

But Severide felt like his feet had been glued to the floor where he stood, suddenly he didn't have the strength or energy to move, and he just stood there feeling dumbstruck by what had just taken place.

An orderly took the bloody sheets off Casey's bed and put new ones on, Severide stood leaning against the wall in a stupor, not having any idea where Casey had been taken or what was happening to him right now or even if he was going to be alright. It felt like he'd been standing around forever, finally he saw Maggie coming back, and he was already dreading the news.

"Maggie."

"They're going to be bringing him back shortly, Kelly," she told him, "he wouldn't stop fighting with the doctors so they sedated him, he's still out cold so you won't be able to talk to him yet."

"What happened?" Kelly asked.

"He needed stitches."

Kelly squeezed his eye shut, trying to shut out that mental image, "Oh my God."

"They'll need to stay in for about two weeks, since it's an internal surgery they used dissolvable stitches so he shouldn't need to come back to have them taken out."

"Small favors," Severide murmured, knowing in the back of his mind that any chance they'd had of the hospital doing a rape kit just went out the window, and feeling like they'd somehow let Matt down by letting that happen. "How long does he have to stay in the hospital?"

"He'll be monitored for any complications, if all goes well, they should be able to send him home in a couple days," Maggie told him.

Kelly looked past her and saw Casey being wheeled back to his room. "Oh God."

As the gurney passed by them, Kelly saw Casey was dead to the world, he hated to think they'd have to keep him sedated full time just to keep him calm. He watched as Casey was transferred back to the bed and covered up, then everybody left the room.

"Can I stay with him?" he asked Maggie.

"Just as long as Casey doesn't object," she told him. "If he starts screaming again you have to leave, he has to rest right now."

He nodded glumly, "I understand."

Kelly stood outside the room and watched Casey for a while. It didn't look like he'd be waking up anytime soon. Severide went into the room, pulled up a chair next to the bed, watched Casey while he slept, after a while he methodically stroked over the top of his head and quietly talked to him, hoping his voice would let Casey know where he was and that he wouldn't flashback to his attack. He didn't know how long he sat there like that with Casey, it felt like hours, but eventually he fell asleep.

When he woke up, he saw Casey sitting up in the bed and he also seemed to be slowly coming around, but he wasn't anymore grateful to see Kelly now than he had been before.

"Leave me alone, Kelly," he said.

"Why?" Severide had to know.

"I don't want to see anybody," Casey said as he turned over on his side and moaned.

"Careful, you got..." but Kelly knew Casey didn't need to be reminded of the stitches, he would be reminded every time he moved.

"Just go away, please," Casey begged him as he buried his face into his pillow.

"Casey, will you just talk to me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Casey didn't want to turn his whole body back around, so he settled for turning his head halfway back to look at him, "Do you have any idea how humiliating this is? Now everybody's gonna know!"

Severide was dumbstruck by his comment, but quickly recovered and said in return, "Casey the doctors here are trained professionals, they see this all the time, they know it wasn't your fault."

"Not them," Casey sounded near tears, "Everybody at 51!"

Severide wondered if Casey remembered anything from when he was at the hotel. "Casey, do you know who found you?"

"I don't want to know!" Casey covered his face with his hands and grumbled, "Don't tell me that, please don't tell me!"

Severide stood over the bed and gently pulled Casey's hands away from his face, "Casey look at me, please."

"I can't face any of them again," Casey groaned.

"Casey they know this wasn't your fault," Severide told him.

"Go away!" Casey turned his head away from him, "Please go away!"

Severide knew Maggie was on her way to escort him out, so he did as he was told, and he left for the time being, and just about bumped into Dr. Charles in the process.

"Well," the psychiatrist said, awkwardly breaking the ice, "all things considered, that didn't go as badly as it could've."

"Do you know what happened?" Kelly asked.

"I haven't been in to see him personally, if that's what you're asking," Dr. Charles told him, "but I have been brought in on the case. Dr. Halstead thought I might be able to help him, but it's pretty obvious he's not ready to open up yet."

"Will he be?" Kelly asked.

"I won't know that until I try talking to him," Daniel replied.

Kelly's eyes lit up with a faint hope, "Can you? Can you talk to him?"

"I'll let him calm down and I'll certainly try," Dr. Charles told him.

Severide felt like they were finally going to get somewhere. "Thank you."

"I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do," the psychiatrist said.

"So how's Casey doing, Severide?" Herrmann asked as everybody crowded around the waiting room for an update.

Kelly shook his head, "I don't know...he doesn't want to see anyone, he doesn't want to talk to anyone, he had...had to have stitches, it was a mess. Do the cops have any leads?"

"None that we've heard," Boden replied, "what're the doctors saying?"

Severide shrugged, "They said if nothing goes wrong, they'll send him home in a few days."

"What do they mean if nothing goes wrong?" Cruz asked, "Like what?"

"I don't have any idea," Kelly told them, "nobody's telling me much of anything."

"Have you actually talked to Casey?" Otis asked.

"I tried but, he's not talking to me," Severide shook his head. "Dr. Charles said he'd try taking a crack at him later."

"This whole thing is messed up," Mouch commented, "how the hell could this even happen to Casey?"

Severide opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but he remembered something he'd heard earlier.

"Maggie said he'd been hit in the back of the head, so he probably never saw it coming," Kelly realized.

"But who did it? And how'd he get to Casey?" Otis asked. "When we went off shift Casey said he was going home, so how'd his truck wind up under that bridge? It's five miles from his place, and seven miles in the other direction from the hotel where he wound up."

"Obviously whoever kidnapped him ditched the truck, figured nobody would find it," Kelly said.

"Yeah, but that meant he had to have a car ready wherever he ditched the truck," Otis said.

Cruz turned to him, "You mean he might've been working with someone?"

"Maybe he had a partner," Otis realized.

"That's enough," Boden spoke up. "The police are looking into the matter, they don't need our speculations, they will follow the facts."

"Yeah but good luck with that, the wiring in that hotel hasn't been new since Ford was president," Mouch pointed out, "the whole place was a loss, they can't get forensics from the hotel room, any record of who had that room would be gone too."

Something came to Otis, he stood up and told the others, "I gotta cut out, guys, I've got something I need to take care of."

"Okay, we'll keep ya posted," Herrmann said.

The hotel might've been a total loss, but Otis knew the manager got out unscathed, and with a little luck, he was able to get the name and home address of the manager, a guy in his 50s who looked like he'd been a used car salesman or a politician in a previous life, who was very curious why a firefighter was coming to see him. Otis decided to go with his usual charm and lie.

"We're assisting CPD in the investigation of what started the fire, and they are trying to track down everybody who was in the hotel at the time, since the fire spread to the top two floors, they want to know the names of the customers who were living in the 4th floor."

"And what makes you think I'd know that?"

"Because I don't think you want your neighbors watching you being hauled out of here in handcuffs for failure to comply and obstructing an official police investigation," Otis told him.

The man took that in and after a minute told Otis, "Business has been slow. Only two rooms were occupied at that time."

"Names?"

"David Donner, he'd just checked in a couple days ago, I think...oh God, I think he was the one they carried out dead. And then Richard Welker, he'd been staying for about a month, he paid on a weekly basis, all cash."

"I'm sure he did," Otis replied as he took out his phone and pulled up a picture of Casey, "Did you ever see this man at the hotel?"

The manager looked at it and nodded, "Yeah, last Saturday night."

That was the first night off shift, about 12 hours before Herrmann first tried calling him and got no answer.

"Was he with Welker by chance?" Otis asked.

"Uh yeah, he was...guy was falling down drunk, Welker had to hold him up clear to the elevator. He told me to put him down for two for the night and paid the extra in cash."

"You're sure he was drunk?"

"Oh yeah, guy could barely talk, barely keep his eyes open, he looked about dead."

Otis grimly nodded, "I see. Did Welker check out?"

"No, but he was always coming and going, I think he left early that morning," the manager explained.

Otis nodded again and told him, "Thank you, I will be sure and let CPD know you've been most cooperative."

He turned and left, and his next stop was at the 21st District to speak to one of the officers investigating what happened to Casey, and fill them in on what he'd found out, hoping it would be of some use to them.

Dr. Charles met Kelly in the hospital cafeteria later that day after he'd decided to try speaking with Casey. It was crowded but they managed to find an unoccupied table to sit at and talk.

"How'd it go?" he asked hopefully.

Dr. Charles sat at the table and told him, "Well, I've been doing this a long time, and I have a lot of experience talking to patients' backs, so that was pretty much on par."

Severide groaned and lowered his head against the tabletop.

"However," Daniel felt a need to add, "he's the first person over the age of 7 I ever talked to who signaled the end of the conversation by pulling the covers up over his head."

Kelly groaned again and smacked himself in the forehead. Dr. Charles didn't seem to think the situation as hopeless as Severide did, and told him, "You have to realize that right now Matt's terrified, of everything: his attack, the fact he couldn't do anything to stop it, that everybody now knows what happened, how they're going to respond to it. Any way you look at it, the entire outlook on his life has become very frightening to Casey."

"What can I do to help him?" Kelly wanted to know.

"You want my professional opinion?" Daniel took off his glasses and looked him in the eyes, "Stay close by. Right now he's trying to drive everyone away so he doesn't have to deal with anybody's reactions, but soon he's going to need someone around he trusts."

"Is he going to be alright?" Severide asked.

"Are you asking physically or mentally?"

"Both."

Dr. Charles looked uncertain about that, "If he agrees to talk, we can start him on therapy while he's here, he'd have to continue seeing a therapist once he got discharged...but yes, I think in time he will be fine."

"How much time?" Kelly asked.

"Unfortunately nobody knows the answer to that one," Dr. Charles told him.