"I know that's what people say- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him." - Betty Smith

Serena stood on the Michigan Avenue Bridge wrapped up in a warm coat with dark sunglasses covering her eyes, today was one of the few days off from work she had and she was outside, freezing her butt off waiting for Emma instead of being tucked up in bed. The two of them were going shopping although Serena just wanted to curl up in bed and slowly die given due to the almighty hangover that she currently had. But Serena had to admit that being outside despite the cold and windy weather was kind of helping her feel better. Although the vertigo that she was currently expecting was one cold hard bitch and Serena told herself that she was never drinking tequila again but she knew that was a lie, Serena would be drinking her favourite poison again after she had a bad day at work or got into an argument with her mother, whatever came first. Sliding her sunglasses up to the top of her head, Serena pinched the bridge of her nose and as she did Serena noticed Emma making her way over to her carrying two cups of coffee.

"Thank god your finally here." Serena quietly said as she took one of the cups of coffee.

"You look like the grim reapers mothers." Emma couldn't help but point out and Serena just sneered at her as she took a sip of her coffee. She knew that she looked like crap without Emma feeling the need to point it out to her without the remark about the grim reapers mother. "So how'd you get like this? Yesterday night when your shift ended you told me your were going home to take a bubble bath and then crawling into bed and watching George Clooney. And the hangover you seem to have is not the kind you get from drinking an entire bottle of wine…"

"When I told you I was going home I meant it but then I got home and who is standing outside my apartment complex? Kelly…" Serena said sliding her sunglasses down to cover her poor tired eyes from the glare of the bright sun.

"So what did our favourite hot firefighter want?" Emma asked as she linked her arm through Serena's arm and the two of them began to slowly walk towards Michigan Avenue to begin their little shopping trip.

"Nothing really, he just stopped by to see me on his way home from work and Kelly wanted to know whether I wanted to go grab a drink and before I knew it, we were in the first of many dive bars drinking the first of many alcoholic beverages we had last night. I should have said no because when Kelly and I go out drinking things tend to end get very messy but he was there standing outside my building with those blue eyes of his and I just couldn't say no…"

"I can see why, that Lt. Severide of yours is quite the looker Serena." Emma noted.

"And he knows it and Kelly uses it to his advantage, you should have seen me during the first two years of me meeting Kelly. All that guy had to do was give me a smile and turn on that charm of his and it was like I had no self control and I found myself agreeing to do practically anything he asked of me." Serena noted in amusement as she took another sip of her coffee.

"Ohh a walk down memory lane, I like the sound of that Dr. McArthur… You can tell me all about how you and Kelly Severide met all those years ago, I want all the gory details especially how the two of you ended up sleeping together all those years ago. You never gave me the details about the hot firefighter sex and I haven't given up about getting those all important answers." Emma said and the excitement was clear in her voice and Serena knew there was no way she could escape this, except for maybe running away. However that was quickly ruled out as Serena was pretty certain that she'd only get about two hundred meters away before her breakfast would come up and make an appearance.

"You really want to know? Not all of it's pretty Em…" Serena began.

"Of course I want to know!" Emma retired.

Serena took a deep breath and sighed. "I was twenty five and I was about two months into my last year of med school at the University of Chicago and I was on rotation at Mount Sinai, when I met Kelly I was on rotation in the emergency room. We didn't meet in the most conventional way, there was no eyes meeting across the room in the slightest. We actually bumped into each other after he had brought some guy in, anyway we bumped into each other when this guy right next to us dropped like a rock. Turns out the guy was in cardiac arrest and the two of us saved his life, Kelly gave him CPR whilst I got the defibrillator and then I shocked the guy back into sinus. Pretty much became friends after that…"

"So a young sweet impressionable Serena, yet to be nicknamed Rocket McArthur stumbles into the hot firefighter who will forever change her world…"

"Pretty much. Sometimes I don't even know how I got through that last year of med school as Kelly just led me completely astray, always convincing me to come out and blow off my studying although it did calm down a bit when I went to Northwestern for my residency. My intern year I was working insane hours and couldn't go out too much but that never stopped Kelly or Andy. They'd stop by occasionally and hang out with my and some of my work friends who were interns with me. Kelly even slept with a few of them…" Serena stated.

"Ouch." Emma replied.

"Yeah, they all thought that they were the ones who could tame Kelly Severide and make him settle down, back then he wasn't anywhere ready for that or a proper relationship and he still isn't. Kelly is as much a womanizer if not more, from when I met him. He is just about having fun and not being tied down in the slightest." Serena explained with a small chuckle.

"What about you Serena? Did you ever have feelings for Kelly back then?" Emma asked and at first Serena didn't say anything. She wasn't sure what to say as Emma was convinced she was in love with Kelly and in major denial about it. Serena knew she could lie but Emma wouldn't believe, so she figured the truth was the best way to go.

"It's complicated…" Serena began.

"Yeah I'm beginning to get that with you and Kelly but continue anyway…" Emma prodded.

"I did have feelings for Kelly but like I said, it was complicated. It wasn't like I had a crush on him from the moment I met him because I didn't. It was always on and off, sometimes I had feelings for Kelly this went on for weeks and months at a time, then there were a lot of time that I didn't have feelings for him. For some reason they just came and went constantly and that was fine with me and Kelly was doing his thing with countless women and I was dating myself. It never really amounted to anything, never when I did have feelings for Kelly did I act upon." Serena stated.

"Why not?"

"Kelly is a great guy, I trust him with my life and I love having him in my life but no matter how much I had feelings for him and suspected he had feelings for me it would have never have worked. I know what Kelly is like, I've seen the good and the bad and I accept him for what he is wholeheartedly but he would have broken my heart. I don't know how long it would have taken; weeks, months or maybe even a year but Kelly would have grown restless and felt trapped and would do something stupid. Kelly would be unfaithful and it would break my heart and we wouldn't be friends anymore and I didn't want that. Our friendship meant too much to me to risk it on the occasional feelings I had for him." Serena explained with a sigh.

"So how the hell did you end up sleeping with him?" Emma asked and Serena knew that it was a good question as she had just herself said she never did anything with Kelly because she didn't want to ruin her friendship with him.

"Fast forward a few years and I'm a fifth year surgical resident at Northwestern, I've already chosen trauma for my specialty, I've been referred to as Rocket for several years now and I'm dating this guy called Richard and at the time I was kind of a bit neurotic about studying for my boards. So Kelly came over to the hospital one day after his shift ended and he told he was taking me out and for night I was going to forget about surgeries, studying, the boards and I was just going to have fun. We went to a bar and as most good stories start, alcohol was involved and how long we were there for I can't remember but then we were in Kelly's apartment and before you knew it we were having sex. The next morning I woke up in Kelly's bed and was aghast at what I had done, I had just cheated on my boyfriend who I had assured several times that nothing was going on with me and Kelly. I freaked out Em and I took it out on Kelly, I yelled at him saying that this was his fault for getting me so drunk and not stopping things before they went too far. But I knew what I was doing Em, in the morning I blamed it on the alcohol and Kelly when I had no right to. Yes I was drunk but I knew what I was doing and I wanted to sleep with Kelly, we had both know that it was a long time coming…" Serena explained.

"And? How was it?" Emma prodded not caring about the fact that Serena had cheated on her boyfriend, she just wanted to know about the sex.

"It was… Let's just say I'd recommend hot firefighter sex." Serena vaguely said which caused Emma to laugh.

"So you slept with Kelly whilst you were dating this Richard guy, what happened next?"

"Everything changed. I broke up with my boyfriend straight away and then Kelly and I stopped talking for six months straight. I used my boards and work as an excuse but I just couldn't be around him at that time, my head was all over the place and whenever we were in the same room with each other we just pretended that the other one wasn't there. We spoke once during that time and we agreed that it was best that we both went our separate ways for a while, I don't know why Kelly did it but I know why I did; it was because I was in love with him." Serena wearily said as thought back to the events of three years ago.

"Serena…" Emma softly began and Serena was grateful that she was wearing sunglasses.

"It's hard not to fall in love with Kelly Severide, it was the last thing I ever wanted to happen to me but it did and eventually I admitted how I felt about him to myself but things were so bad between us that it hurt too much to be here in Chicago anymore, I knew I'd keep running into Kelly so I turned down my fellowship at Northwester and took up the offer that Massachusetts General gave me. I couldn't bring myself to tell Kelly so I had our friend Andy tell him instead and for some reason I thought that Kelly would just show up and tell me not to go. I thought he'd look at me with those blue eyes of his and say he didn't want me to go and somehow I'd be convinced not to go to Boston. He didn't. So I left and we had no contact with each other until we came across each other at Andy's funeral and Kelly found out I had come back to Chicago."

"I would have thought Kelly would have gone after you." Emma said after a moment.

"So did I… It just proves Kelly never felt the same way." Serena replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "But it doesn't matter anymore, the past is in the past and the two of us being apart has seemed to do us both good. We're both where we want to be in our careers and we've grown as people, I am no longer a complete sucker to Kelly's charms and he's learnt to be serious once in a while. Most importantly we're friends again…"

"I don't believe the two of you are just meant to be friends, it's been years since what happened three years ago and I've seen the two of you together and there is something there Serena." Emma stated and Serena just sighed, most people were always convinced something was always going on with her and Kelly, which there probably was. But that didn't always mean it was a good thing.

"Maybe it's just not meant to be? If the two of us were supposed to be together then it would have happened by now but it hasn't. Kelly and I have gone through too much to be anything more than friends and he broke my heart once, I don't think I could cope with him doing it again…"