Okay, so I'm apologising again for the late update, forgot how much shift work takes out of you.. that and i had two interviews for staff nurse jobs which I have been training for for the last three years which has been an interesting journey to say the least...aannnd i got offered one of the jobs at a busy city hospital which will start in september/october! anyway on with the story...let see what trouble my muse has in mind for Matt this time.
Please Enjoy and review !
Chapter 3 - Nightmarish Reality
Kelly Severide, while driving to work two days later, thought it odd that the other lieutenant's truck was parked outside a cafe, especially since Casey was generally in work before him as the guy just didn't know when to stop sometimes.
Though he knew that some of it had been his fault over the last few months, they used to hang out quite often together with Andy and...well, that had pretty much stopped and he'd admitted to himself that he'd been an ass to Casey afterwards and even more recently with the whole Heather thing. Over the last couple of days off, Shay had forced him to see the error of his ways and remember that Casey wouldn't actually do all the things that he was having a go at the guy for and had also tried to convince him to call Matt of the last two days to get it all out in the open.
However, he'd put it off, just like the Tara thing and thought it could be dealt with later, like maybe at work when they got there this morning.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a bad feeling crept into his gut as he drove past his friend's truck. What he couldn't see from the angle he was driving which would certainly cause alarms bells to go off was the two days worth of tickets in the windscreen wipers which had built up.
He shrugged off his concern though, maybe Matt had just made it into work a different way because the truck was broken or something like that or he'd gone home with Hallie as apparently she had shown up at Molly's the other day when he'd been called back to the firehouse.
Arriving at the firehouse, Kelly wrapped up against the chill in the air and thought about what today's shift might bring.
Upon entering, he could tell that something was wrong, the atmosphere was far too tense and unsure. He walked into the dining area and when Casey's team saw Severide they asked him a bunch of questions as if it were his fault. The one clear question out of the many being.
"Where is Casey?"
He resented that his actions in the past and recently had meant that Casey's felt the need to come at him like they were and sighed.
"Look guys, I don't know where he is, I've not seen him since the last time we were on shift." He hoped that they would believe the honesty in his tone but he knew it was the truth.
He expected them to look at him like he'd been lying and to his surprise and adding to the feeling that something was really wrong, they looked at him like he'd been their last hope of finding out where their team leader was and it unsettled him deeply to see it.
There was something else going on here and he needed to know what it was. Knowing the question he was about to ask they all spoke in turn of how they had tried to contact Casey and Hermann spoke about a project with the Bar that he'd promised to help with and didn't show up.
Casey always kept his promises.
Bowden walked into the dining area with a serious face, his presence hushing the conversation between the two teams. He took a breath and addressed the room with a heaviness that could be felt by all.
"Voight has escaped." He looked around at the one person that this would affect the most, upon finding him missing and the looks his other men's faces, he feared the answer to the question that needed to be asked.
"What's happened?" His voice low with concern.
With nobody forthcoming with an answer, Severide stepped forward.
"We don't know where Casey is."
The frown on Bowden's face deepened, that wasn't the news he wanted to hear right now.
Severide turned to leave the room, amid calls for his to stop and ask where he was going.
Feeling more and more guilty by the minute that he hadn't checked up on one of his best friends because of his own hot headedness; he was going to Matt's house, hoping that he'd just merely overslept and all this worry was for nothing.
The atmosphere outside of Casey's house didn't match the inner turmoil of the person entering the too quiet house. He still had his spare key from when they had been good friends which was lucky but it only made him feel worse about everything.
Searching the silent house, with two days worth of post behind the door, and not finding his friend sleeping drove up his guilt to epic levels.
Why hadn't he at least called him?
He'd tried on his way over here like the other had this morning and gotten the answer machine straight away as if it had been turned off and Matt what never unreachable, Hallie's number was the same and she hadn't been into work for as long as they were now assuming Matt had been missing.
Which meant they were both missing.
Chicago was a big city to search.
And it killed him that he could have easily come to check up on him even if he had been sleeping and may have noticed sooner that he was missing.
With a heavy heart he called the chief so they could contact the police department to see if they could get things starting on searching for their missing people.
X-Chicago Fire-X
The shock of the reveal froze Casey to the spot; the tendrils of fear digging deeper than he thought possible. This was the man that had tried to get him killed.
One who had connections to people who had hurt and tortured many people. One who had caused him and Hallie to live in fear until he had been put behind bars. He wondered briefly just how he had gotten out.
The taste of his own blood mixed with the musty taste of the rag that was drying his mouth almost caused him to gag, but he knew that he would be a very bad idea at the moment.
With the darkness of the room complete, there was no passage of time, his watch had been taken and there were no windows to speak of so he had no idea of how long he'd already been here, if he was late for work and leaving his team a man down. That did not sit well with Casey, it wasn't that they couldn't do the job without him, it was just that he'd prefer to be there for his team.
And now that Voight seemed to be free he might go after the team simply because of the association between Casey and the firehouse and the friendships he had created. It wasn't like the guy didn't know what was important to Casey after all.
Still trying to comprehend how Voight had managed to get out, his thoughts were cut short when his world was toppled backwards by a strong hand slamming into his chest, causing the chair he was sat on and his head to smash against the unforgiving concrete behind him.
The next few minutes were either a dream or a blur, because he thought he saw Hallie between the waves of light and pain, signalling one hell of a concussion starting up due to the force of the impact with the floor. He would have groaned or breathed deeply to try and settle the pain but the rag forced into his mouth earlier prevented him from doing just that and also effectively cut down the air supply to his body; so breathing was quite difficult at the moment.
He also thought that Hallie was trying to talk to him, however, he couldn't hear her though the ringing in his ears and not knowing if she was really there or not; straining already strained muscles he turned away not wanting her to see him hurt as he knew it had upset her the last time he'd been in hospital, he couldn't stand to see her worried.
Once his head had stopping spinning and the heaving in chest had calmed down, he noticed that the lights had come back on to an almost a migraine inducing level, not that he wasn't working on his own headache though. Looking around through slightly blurred vision he noticed something that didn't bode well for him at all. The rising panic that his mind was succumbing to was being to become a problem in its self, it made him question again what he'd been given. He was used to highly charged situations and managed them without panic, this was different sure but he was sure something else was at work here.
Old blood stained chains were hanging off the cold stone walls, smudges of red haphazardly strew across the grim grey walls almost like clouds against a grim sky. Had he been that pre-occupied that he'd not noticed them? Or had he been moved? But that didn't make sense either. He shook his head in effort to clear the fog in his mind but immediately regretted it when his world spun at an odd angle again.
A hand came out of the confusing swirls his head was making around the room; dragged him and the chair he was sat on bolt upright so fast that his stomach rebelled against him.
His body convulsed in effort not to choke himself by allowing the acidic bile to come up.
The ensuing minutes of confusion a few things happened all at once.
Somebody that disturbingly sounded a lot like Hallie shouted at Voight to stop what he was doing.
Matt's body continued to convulse with the effort; ripping layers of skin from his wrists and ankle, but this time it was to breathe, and couldn't make any sense of what was happening around him; the edges of his vision greying and wavering to black.
The duck tape and rag were roughly ripped from his face but he was already spent of energy and was only clutching on to reality by a thin thread. His coughing effort was nonexistent and his breathing shallow, trying to right the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide but failing.
He could vaguely feel someone shaking at his shoulders, but it didn't really register in his brain before his body decided to shut down for a while to rest and the blackness consumed him.
TBC
So how was that? poor matty is a little confused right now but he will figure out stuff soon...i promise. i also promise some more whump and a great amount of angst :)