I am very sorry that i left you all hanging with this story but alas here is the next chapter and oh my word was my muse being particularly cruel this time round, she didn't want to be too cliché and wanted to stick to some medical rules etc etc all im saying is that amazing things can happen in the medical world ! Though i am bending it a bit but i'm going to put that down to creative licence of a writer because my muse wanted it to happen this way. Anyway Enjoy! Also thanks for reviewing/reading so far and mega thanks to my Beta Reader Callisto-HK for kicking my butt on this haha!
Chapter 9
Walking into the firehouse felt like a betrayal of the worst kind, that he could walk in here able to do the job that they all loved, that he could move, that he could even breath on his own...
To look at the trucks on the floor, having been cleaned recently and people milling around the house going about their daily business, from the outside it looked like there was absolutely nothing wrong, that it was just a normal day of fighting fires and saving lives.
The lack of banter out on calls would look like professionalism and like they were a well oiled team that didn't need to tell each other what to do because they were just that practiced. But, for those that did know.
Those that knew the men and women of firehouse 51, knew that all that sparkling of the trucks and professionalism was their way of coping with something that should never be. Outsiders didn't see the subtle signs of the tired worn out, but now unified teams.
In the kitchen, the TV was on but the mood was defeated and deflated, similar to the morning sun being smothered by the dull clouds.
Casey's team were lost without their leader, it wasn't that they couldn't do their jobs without him, I mean sure they could and very well, but given the choice they just plain didn't want to. Severide had tried to be there for them out of a respect that they were all still suspicious of and they were trying, they all were but sometimes it all boiled over for them all.
It had been a relatively quiet shift so far; everyone was attempting to relax in the wake that it was going into the fourth week of Casey being in a coma, and over a month since some of them had spoken to him, well at least in a state that he could respond to them anyway.
Nobody afterwards would even remember how it started, but start it did.
The chief heard a commotion from his office, chairs scraps against the vinyl floor of the kitchen, pans clattering against the work tops. Growling, the chief left his office to see what it was about this time, he would have thought given the situation, the guys would have reconciled some difference for the sake of keeping the peace while one of their own was recovering. Being the chief, he couldn't believe that anything else would happen.
The peacemaker in Casey had been sorely missed over the weeks , everyone liked Casey, and even though on the face of it, it looked like Kelly hated him, the chief knew the truth. Shaking his head he caught the end of a taunt that he knew his other lieutenant would take to heart.
"You walk around here as if he was your best friend when you couldn't stand to be in the same room as him not a day before all this happened, and now you can't even stand to go and visit him for longer than a brief look through the window!"
All was silent, the sun that had attempted to peak through the clouds to the windows was over shadowed by the gloom of the day. It was as if the whole house had heard, not even the people in the offices sounded like they were typing, just nothing.
Severide was standing in the doorway from the apparatus floor as if he'd just come in to the room, Casey's team were glaring at him from their recently seated positions but were now standing to defend the accuser. Kelly's team had been following him in but seemed unsure whether or not there was truth in the statement.
Shay and Dawson had been deep in conversation but Shay looked like she wanted to deck the person attacking her friend.
"Herman, that's not fair and you know it!" Her eyes were dangerous, but she knew that on the face of it they would all in some part believe what had been said.
The chief for his part was shocked that the normally mild-mannered Herman would say something but then, even though he was Casey's second he had taken a liking to Casey in a fatherly way, and knowing the situation with Casey's own parents, he was fiercely protective over him when it called for it.
"Shay, it's okay, they're right." Severide just sighed, totally defeated.
"How dare.." Herman started until he registered what Kelly had actually said, not expecting the response considering his responses to his lieutenant in the past. He took in the appearance of the other man as well, he looked like crap, well they all felt like crap sure but Severide looked exhausted and he tried not to feel for the guy as he'd done the same to Casey even though Casey had been witness to Andy's death just as he'd been to Casey's briefly until they had got him back.
The tension in the room left as quick as it had boiled up, the men weary and wanting to get the person responsible for hurting Casey. The chief cleared his throat as if to speak but was interrupted by the ringing of his cell, frowning at the intrusion, he answered when he recognised it was a call from the hospital.
All heads were turned towards the Chief and holding their breaths, they'd been waiting for news for what felt like forever.
The way the chief seemed to deflate at the end of the phone call put everyone on high alert.
You'd be able to hear a pin drop once the call was over, they needed some sign, some hope that things could get back to normal now.
"They have to make a decision soon."
The Chief could picture the speck of hope that had been holding everything together so far had just been thrown to the ground and shattered into a million pieces.
Severide paled, well more so than the rest, turned and left the firehouse.
The shouts of both teams and the chief not stopping him.
There was something he needed to do and he needed to do this alone.
Back inside the house Shay moved to follow Kelly but the Chief lightly grabbed her arm, she turned to face him.
"He needs to do this on his own, of his own free will."
"But, he..." She stumbled unsually over her words, he was her best friend and he was hurting but at the same time she knew that the Chief was right. Kelly might have ran if anyone was there to watch.
They all knew in an instant where he was going as soon as he'd gone and hoped that this was a turning point for everything.
X-Chicago Fire-X
Kelly Severide paced outside the hospital a few moments trying to decided what he should do, what he could say to a comatose friend that he hadn't been much of a friend to recently. Shaking himself he decided to go in, he needed to do this sooner or later and before the doctors took the decision out of their hands completely at least at the moment there was still some hope as long as nothing else happened.
Stepping up to the room all the hopes he'd had before entering were thrown like glass against concrete and shattered. Icy tendrils of fear leeching into his blood.
The once rhythmic cadence of the monitors surrounding his friend had been drowned out to the one mono-toned note that every friend, relative and medical professional hated to hear.
Hated it because it meant that the fight may have been lost, that there was nothing more that could be done but attempt to force the failed heart to beat again. Worse to those who had to watch every time when the attempt hadn't even been started, and all that could be done was watch and wait to comfort the distraught relatives because at the end of it all; death had been the only relief to the suffering the person had lived before.
Even, Kelly Severide had been here before, as fire fighters they had all seen this happen with victims they had saved from the fire but the injuries had been to severe to be saved at the end of the day. And at the end of it all, while the relatives had been distraught they were still grateful to everyone for trying.
Distracted wholly by the sound the one and only time he'd thought to venture into the room and not merely hang around he window, he almost failed to see what was actually happening and almost got the resuscitation team killed in the process.
"Stop!" Severide blocked the door with his body but faced the room at what was happening, he really hoped that someone had some sense to call the police department because this could go wrong and fast.
"Sir, you must let us past!" The lead doctor shouted at the firemen and tried to barge past him to reach their patient.
The ominous click of a gun stopped everyone in their tracks.
"I'd stop right there if you know what's good for you." The voice was smug and leering at them all, he knew he was in control and Severide hate it, the anger at the situation to date boiled within his veins and he couldn't help himself.
"Don't you dare, Voight!" Kelly was beyond angry.
Voight had his arm tightly wrapped around Casey's chest, his pale body limp, rivulets of blood trailing from places that once had drugs and fluids attached to him. The ventilator tube having seemingly been ripped out, leaving bloody salvia leaking from the side of Casey's mouth. Kelly worried if his friend was even breathing but he was distracted from his friends face when Voight spoke again.
"He needs to pay!"
"You tried to get him killed more than once!" Kelly shouted back and dared to look briefly at the team of medical professionals and down the corridor to see if help would be coming anytime soon. The resus team looked concerned for their patient but afraid of the madman who had been a police officer at one point.
Looking back at the scene had Kelly's fear ramping up to new heights, Voight now had his left arm around Casey's neck, the strain on Matt's body was obvious to anyone looking and his right hand held the gun which was alternately swapping from Casey's newly bruised cheek and Kelly to stop him from trying to rescue his friend.
Voight sneered in such a way that Kelly knew that what he was about to hear wasn't going to be good.
"What will the city think though, a fire fighter protecting a murder from his own firehouse. Tut tut, what will they think ." Kelly saw red and moved forward but stopped immediately when Voight dug the gun harder into Matt's cheek enough so that it drew blood.
"How dare...it was self defence and you know it!" Not everything had been made public and Kelly knew that if the wrong people heard there would be hell to pay with the media.
Once they had gotten Matt away from the warehouse and on his way to the hospital, the police had searched the place and had found the body of one of Voight's men not far away from where Kelly had found his friend. They had each other's blood on them from the forensic tests that had been run. The techs had ruled that Casey, in a surge of panic, fighting for his life had killed the other man with a blow to the back of the head from a two-by-four. Kelly knew that if Casey remembered it he would feel guilty but he hadn't had a choice if he'd wanted to live and it had been ruled self-defence, case closed.
That was when Antonio and his team turned up and tried to diffuse the situation.
"Voight! You have nowhere to go, put the gun down." His own raising to aim at Voight, the team behind him trying to see if there was any other way into the room and getting the medical team out of the way just in case anything happened.
One of them that Kelly didn't know tried to move him but he stood firm at the entrance to the room, unwilling to move this time, out of the corner of his eye he saw that the Chief had also showed up, probably having heard the call over the radio for the police to the hospital, shock marring his tired features.
Seeing this, Voight's smile, if anything widened, his eyes gleaned with malice.
"Well, " he drawled evilly, looking at all the players, "now that we are all here."
For a split second, everything was almost locked in time, no one wanting to breathe or move for it would change things for the worse.
The only sound piercing the blanket of silence was the mono-tone that Kelly walked into just what seemed like minutes ago.
Then, like a flash of thunder, everything descended into to chaos and confusion.
Shots were fired.
Fire burned within.
Blood was spilled on the pure white floor.
People were shouting.
Bodies fell to the ground.
Shocked gasps of breath were taken.
Holes were scored into the walls.
Glass fractured and fell to the ground haphazardly, cutting hands that scrabbled desperately in a rush to save lives.
Adrenalin coursed through weary, tired bodies hoping that it would be over soon.
Eyes opened tiredly for a second before pain close them tightly.
He failed, failed, there was nothing else left.
There was one final deafening shot and everything fell silent once again.
Even the machines, the monitor destroyed by a stray shot.
The people who would come to repair the room would ask what had happened in days to come, the hospital staff would look solemnly at them and not speak of it again.
The fact that a former officer of the law would come into a place that was supposed to be safe and do what he'd done would tarnish the history of the hospital and the souls involved.
What had happened here was unforgiveable.
TBC
I know it's another cliff-hanger but my muse struck again and has dictated that she wanted it this way I'm really sorry ! Please lemme know what you think !