Hi. I left this story stagnant for too long. If you've seen the other one I'm writing you know why. It's now a mammoth thing. This one will be demonstrably shorter and quieter since it is about grief and loss. Also of course it is slightly AU. Thank you for reading.

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf's sandbox. I'm just playing in it.

She woke to the smell of hot coffee and birds chirping. She woke up in a world without one of her closest friends and stuffed her fist in her mouth to swallow the scream that still came unbidden each morning like the last vestige of a nightmare. The night terror was real. The truth hurt, Dawson wrapped her arms around her head, her body pulled in on itself. She imagined herself a tortoise shell, all the soft bits tucked in and away so they wouldn't be hurt but she was. Each morning, her grief astounded her. Shay was the first call. The first person to hear anything about her life and she wasn't even going to look at her phone because Antonio had probably already sent several texts, and voicemail each filled with a vaguely worded threat from their mother.

On second thought. Dawson stuck one hand out from under her pillow to pull her phone from the nightstand. She took the battery out. Ripped the SIM from its crevice and tossed it all to the floor before turning over into an unexpected sunbeam from the window. Fuck. It was tomorrow. She lay there for countless minutes, incapable of getting up. She listened to the birds, driving her more and more mad as only a city girl could be, surrounded by so much nature. The coffee smelled good but she knew Severide would not intrude on her solitude. Blessedly, the playboy firefighter had some intuition for the way she handled grief, and she did too. She was never going to ask him if he was okay. His best friend had died. She had watched their friend die. Neither of them were okay.

But then her stomach growled. And she could hear the shuffle of Kelly's feet, and the clicking shut of a wooden door, the front door she suspected, and Dawson sat up slowly to greet the day. She didn't know the time and didn't want to. Sunlight told her it was afternoon probably and her stomach was gnawing on itself. It served to remind her she was alive. Her body demanded she continue to be so. Grumbling incoherently she stubbed her toe, fumbling out of the bed and to the only door of the bedroom.

She was greeted by unbearable light. By windows wide open, curtains softly moving in the window. It was a glorious day and she fucking hated it. The room she had slept in abutted right onto the simple kitchen. She saw the coffeemaker and the mug Severide had put out and she glanced around to the living room where he'd slept on the pullout mattress from the couch. It barely looked slept in. And she didn't think of Severide as a particularly neat and tidy guy. Especially not now, with the pall of grief hanging over him, a bitter counterweight to the strength of his broad shoulders. Dawson squinted and scratched at her eyes before she poured herself some coffee and struggled in her decision to seek her colleague out.

He'd given her a gift. Given her the reprieve she needed as the world clouded over and crowded in. She didn't want to be Paramedic in Charge Dawson, just accepted to firefighters' academy and all around tough chick. She wanted to be Gabi, Leslie's friend and confidante. She wanted to crawl into the other girl's bed and whisper how Casey had maybe decided to marry her and could she believe it? Everything she had ever wanted was finally finally happening. And then Shay would snort, whack her with a pillow and say: it took you two idiots long enough. Except she didn't actually have the ring, it was only an intuition and in the days after Shay's collapse, she could barely look at anyone without wanting to cry so she didn't look at all. Not even Casey. And then the fucking funeral…

"Hey,"

Severide looked tentative as he stepped back inside with an armload of firewood and a fine sheen of sweat across his haggard face. Dawson startled at the sound of his voice. She realized then, that she hadn't spoken a word since they'd arrived the night before. Since he'd guided her, hand at the small of her back through the woods to this house all the while in her head she was singing, to grandmother's house we go!

Except she had no fucking clue where they were and Dawson's instinctive curiosity peeked out from behind her misery. Severide had so many secrets damn him.

"What is this place?" she croaked, sipping her coffee to soothe her throat. Not where. She actually couldn't have cared where they were as long as she was alone and could dwell on her thoughts in peace. Severide shrugged as he dumped the wood next to the fireplace. It'd been cold the night before but she hadn't noticed it enough to care. Maybe he'd been shivering and that was why he couldn't sleep. She didn't ask.

"Mum's. She never told Benny and I only found out about it after she died"

"Oh yeah?" she responded noncommittally. She noted how his voice got even softer when he talked about his mom, another woman who'd died way before her time. There was a lilt to his speech that made her think she'd spoken in the same manner and it only came out when he mentioned her.

"Might have been a family vacation house or something. There were pictures. I'll never know. Who cares anyway."

Who indeed but it was clear he'd kept up the place. And if she remembered correctly, his mother had died while he was a teenager which meant this had been his bolthole for more than a decade. She could have asked another personal question but Dawson was tired and it really didn't matter. Severide had allowed her to come along on his escape ride from Chicago and she was more than a little grateful. Impulsively she set the coffee down and strode over to hug him from behind as he organized the firewood. She hugged him tight, quiet for long moments when he didn't protest, the simple familiarity of his sweat and body enough to ground her while all the world went mad.

"Thank you Kelly." Dawson whispered this into his shirt over his spine. Severide stiffened then relaxed in her grasp. His callused hands gripped hers around his waist.

"I did nothing."

Dawson went still. Severide wasn't talking about her. He was bringing up the one thing they did not dare broach. The cataclysm that had thrust them right over the edge into this space where they avoided everyone and everything they loved. She pulled back violently.

"Neither did I so shut up"

"Dawson…"

"I said shut up!"

And with that, Dawson flung herself out of the house, stumbling away into the sunlight where Severide didn't follow.

more on where they are in the next chapter!