"Hey get this," Kelly said as he entered the house carrying a box, "since we're not getting much sleep at night anyway, Otis lent us his entire Hammer horror movie collection to watch."

"That'll do it," Casey replied from where he sat on the couch, and dropped his head to the side and started snoring.

Severide grinned in response as he headed over to Casey.

"So," he said more seriously as he put the box on the coffee table, "you still mad at me?"

Casey raised his arm and made a 'so/so' gesture.

"I'm sorry man, but I had to do something," Kelly said as he sat down beside him.

"I know," Casey replied, "doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Well, when it's all said and done, was this shift painless like I said?" Severide asked.

"Not quite, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be," Casey told him.

"It'll get better from here," Kelly said.

"I might just hold you to that," Matt said.

There was a pause between them before Severide asked, "What about the next part?"

"What part?"

"Your statement to the cops."

Casey looked at him.

"I know, you don't want to," Kelly said. That had been Casey's answer to everything, and it hadn't really dawned on him yet that most of the things he'd been adamant about not wanting to, he'd eventually given into and done anyway. He just hoped this was going to be another one of them, now that the cat was out of the bag and Casey knew that everybody at 51 knew, he couldn't very well not go to the police and tell them what happened, he'd have to know everybody would be wondering when he came back on next shift.

"No I don't...but I will," Casey sighed.

Kelly reached over and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I'll go with you."

"They won't let you in the room," Casey told him.

"So what? I'll still go with you," Kelly said.

Casey looked to the side and laughed somberly, then he looked back at Kelly and said, "You know, Severide, sooner or later we've go to start meeting new people."


Severide shifted in his chair and watched the clock and waited for Casey to come out of the interview room with the detectives. They'd been there almost an hour and he couldn't help wondering what was going on.

Finally he heard the door open and saw Casey step out and walk over towards him.

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

Casey didn't even make eye contact with Severide as he answered, "Next time I get the bright idea to do this, just take me out back and shoot me."

"What happened?" Kelly asked as he got up.

"I don't want to talk about it," Casey said as he headed for the door.

Kelly was right behind him. "What'd they do?"

"You're not beating up a cop, Severide, let's just go," Casey said.

They left the precinct and got in Kelly's car.

"So what happened?" he tried again as he drove them out of there.

"Let's just say I got the impression the guy working today didn't take me very seriously," Casey told him as he started to calm down. "Kept asking me if I was sure I didn't know the guy, was I sure I didn't let him in. Started asking why I left the hospital before the rape kit could be done, why I didn't report it right away, why I didn't fight back, why the door was unlocked."

"Bastards," Kelly said.

"Yeah...but at least that's over," Casey said with a defeated sigh..."for now. I still hope to God they don't find this guy. I don't need the whole House in the courtroom when they go into all the gory details."

"I know you don't really mean that, Casey," Severide said.

"Want a bet?"

"You know as well as I do that people like this don't just attack one person, hell, you probably weren't the first one he's done this to, and if they don't catch him, he'll do it again to someone else."

"You can't guilt me into wanting him caught, Severide."

"I'm not trying to," Kelly replied. "But you know it's true."

Matt didn't say anything after that, Kelly looked over and saw his head was slumped down and he seemed to be muttering something to himself. Kelly made a sharp swerve and took them off the main road and pulled the car over into a clearing.

"What happened?" Casey asked as he looked up.

Severide turned in his seat to look Casey straight in the eyes.

"Casey, I'm sorry."

Matt looked at him with a confused expression. "Sorry about what?"

"I'm sorry I didn't kill that bastard when I had the chance," Kelly leaned back in his seat and said, "then none of this would be happening."

Casey looked straight into his eyes, Severide felt like they were piercing right through something. Matt leaned forward and pulled Severide against him in a strong hug.

"I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry," Kelly said as he felt the tears running down from his eyes.

Matt kept his arm pressed against Severide's back, and told him, "You saved my life...and I never even told you 'thank you'."

He felt Severide's body jerk against him as a series of choking sobs rose up from his chest. Casey pulled him closer and told him, "It's alright, it's alright."


"You hungry?" Kelly asked as they entered the house.

"Not really, but I could eat," Casey answered.

"You wanna order in?"

"Nah, just take something out of the freezer," Casey said as he turned and locked the door.

"You nuts? Who knows what's hiding in there just waiting to escape?" Kelly said as he went over to the fridge.

"I don't need you criticizing my housekeeping skills, Severide."

"I'm not. I'm criticizing that science experiment you call leftover pizza."

Casey sorted through the day's mail as he waited for another smart remark from Kelly. When he didn't hear any he called into the kitchen, "Well?"

"Looks like it already broke out," Kelly said as he came into the dining room carrying two flat boxes, "only thing in there besides the icemaker is a couple frozen dinners."

Casey grunted. "I'll get it restocked tomorrow."

"I'll toss these in," Kelly said as he turned and headed back to the kitchen.

"Oh by the way, did you hear back about that Lafferty thing?" Casey asked.

Kelly froze for a second, but quickly recovered.

"Yeah," he answered, keeping his back to Casey, "it turns out this guy is the brother of a woman that I had a thing with a while back, and we parted on less than pleasant terms, and I guess she decided to sic her big brother on me, and like everybody else who comes after anybody at 51, he decided the best way to do that would be with public accusations. Apparently my reputation precedes me."

"How so?" Casey asked.

"The night I was supposed to have kicked his ass in a bar fight, he found out one of the bars I frequent the most when I'm not at Molly's, stuck around, got drunk, got into a fight with somebody, nobody could swear one way or the other that it was me, but it was a natural assumption. The only thing he wasn't counting on was that I'd stayed home every night that week and had an airtight alibi."

"Definitely something nobody would be expecting," Matt remarked, "Kelly Severide stops hitting the bars every night and his normal routine comes to a crashing halt, something must be wrong."

Kelly laughed, "Yeah, I suppose so..."

Then Kelly felt his eyes widen as something occurred to him.


Kelly entered the 21st District and went straight to the front desk.

"What can I do for you?" Trudy Platt asked unenthusiastically, not even looking up from her work.

"My name's Kelly Severide..."

"I know who you are, Kelly," Trudy looked up at him with an equally unenthusiastic expression on her face, "now what do you want?"

"I need to talk to Voight."

"Sorry, he's not in," Trudy replied in a manner that Kelly couldn't be sure if she was jerking him around or not.

"Then let me speak to Antonio."

"And what is this in regards to?" she asked.

"Matt Casey."

Trudy's cynical demeanor suddenly vanished, she stared at Severide for a few seconds, then told him, "One minute."


"Casey said something the day you showed up, and I didn't think anything about it at the time, but I think it could be crucial," Kelly told Antonio as they headed upstairs to the Intelligence bullpen.

Antonio pointed, "That's my desk, have a seat."

"Casey said when he came home that night, he forgot to lock the door, that's how the guy got in," Severide said as he sat down. "Now, 99 times out of 100 you lock the door, what're the odds the first time you forget that somebody's just going to happen to walk in and try to kill you?"

"Usually not very good," Antonio replied.

"Right, but here's the thing, Casey doesn't have an exact schedule when he gets off shift, he's not coming home at the same time every night, so how would this guy know that he'd be there at that exact time?" Kelly asked.

"There are a couple ways it could be possible," Dawson told him.

"Like if this bastard was waiting outside for Casey to come home," Kelly said.

"Or if he was following Casey," Antonio added. "Does he have any enemies?"

"Everybody at Firehouse 51 has enemies, even when we don't do anything we do, I said years ago, that House is cursed, horrible stuff happens to everybody who works there...maybe this is just more of the same."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Dawson said, "does Casey have any enemies personally?"

"Not since he gave up the whole alderman thing, not really," Severide answered.

"Well there's another possibility, Severide," Antonio said, "that maybe Casey was targeted because he fits a type."

"Type?"

"Serial attackers often target victims who share some physical trait, body type, the color of his hair, anything like that. Sometimes the types aren't even physical, it's something like a name, age, job, neighborhood, anything like that."

"That really happens?" Kelly asked.

"More often than you think," Antonio told him.

"But if this guy's done it before, why wasn't there a hit on the DNA?" Kelly wanted to know.

"Two theories come to mind," Antonio said, "one, all other victims were presumably male also, and like Casey, didn't want anybody to know, so whatever DNA evidence there might've been was washed away in the shower and they never told anybody what happened. If crimes aren't reported, we can't establish a pattern."

"And the other theory?" Severide asked.

"It's possible this guy's used a condom every time before this and is starting to make mistakes, that he got too confident he'd never be caught because his DNA was never put in the system," Dawson explained.

Kelly sucked in a hard breath and slammed his forehead against the desk hopelessly.

"This is actually good, Kelly," Antonio told him, "it gives us a better idea of what kind of person we're looking for."

"Yeah," Severide picked his head up, "but what do I tell Casey?"

"How's he doing?" Antonio asked.

Kelly looked up as he tried to figure how to answer. Instead, he asked Antonio, "He's never going to be okay, is he?"

"It does take a while," Antonio answered, "there's no magic fix to what he's going through, but when we catch this bastard, that should help a lot."

"Yeah, maybe..."