Severide was just buying his much needed first coffee of the day when he caught sight of them. He tried to ignore the pang in his stomach that the sight of Andy's widow and children brought. He hadn't seen them since the funeral and Severide got the feeling that Heather was avoiding him for some reason.
That feeling was confirmed at the tight smile that crossed Heather's lips when he caught her elbow in greeting.
"Hey."
"Hi," she said back, her overly bright voice clearly faked.
Severide glanced at her questioningly but missed her responding look as he tousled the boy's hair in greeting. As soon as his hand left Ben's hair, Heather was whisking them up the stairs and further into the cafe.
"Hey," he said, touching her elbow again to get her attention. He tried not to be hurt when she immediately pulled free of his grip. "How are you doing?"
"I'm good, Kelly. But I gotta go in."
"Uh wait. I've been meaning to come by and check on you-" he tried.
"Just save it," she replied nastily, the fake smile already disappearing; replaced by a cold, blank stare. "Really?"
And it all clicked into place for Severide, once he looked into her eyes. The coldness there, when once upon a time there would have been warmth. The betrayal. The blame. Heather blamed him for Andy's death.
It took everything Severide had not to recoil from her. "Come on," he implored, needing to explain that it was no one's fault. That the circumstances had just been shitty. "Andy and I were best-"
"Stop right there. Andy never even would have been a firefighter if it weren't for you." Severide's mouth dropped open in shock and Heather took the chance to escape further into the confines of the shop. Severide staggered back a few steps before finally gathering enough wits about him to make his way outside and slump into his car. It wasn't that Heather blamed him for Andy's death that day. That would have been manageable; painful, but manageable. It wasn't even that Heather blamed him and not Casey. Severide had already come to terms with that possibility after seeing the two of them interact the other day. No, it was Heather blamed him for Andy's whole life. A life as a firefighter that Severide knew he had loved.
By the time Severide gathered his scrambled emotions together enough to drive himself over to the house he was running late and the squad from the previous shift were hanging around unhappily, unable to leave until there was a Lieutenant on site ready to take over. He screeched to a halt in front of the station and hurried in, not missing the slightly dangerous looks he received from the previous shift as they hurried to their own cars.
He glanced around the apparatus floor and noticed the absent 81 truck, his geared up men and Chief Boden watching him passively from the doors. He fought the urge to swear and broke into a jog.
"Grease fire. No emergency, but get changed quickly and head over. Casey's already there handling it." Boden told him, standing aside to let him pass.
Severide knew he was getting off easily. Had this happened a couple of months ago he would have gotten reamed over his lateness and might have even been written up over it. But after the loss of Darden, Boden was taking it easy on everyone but Severide knew it wouldn't last much longer and he would need to up his game.
He changed quickly and vaulted into the squad truck, Capp taking off before the door was even closed. They sped through the streets of Chicago, alarm parting the traffic like Moses with the red sea and they pulled up at the scene to find they weren't needed after all. Already firefighters were making their way from the house and Mouch was climbing down from the roof where he had been sent evidently to vent.
Severide leapt from his seat and asked the nearest firefighter who happened to be Mouch who was just stepping down from the ladder, "What's happening."
Mouch bristled slightly - seemingly still smarting from Severide's tough criticism from the other shift - before answering, "Just a grease fire, Lieutenant. Put it out with the extinguisher and Casey's just trying to get the tenant out."
"What's the problem?" Severide asked, ignoring Mouch's cold tone.
"Think he's going to get kicked out of his apartment or something. Casey's on it," Mouch replied gruffly.
Severide repressed a vaguely amused snort at the thought, knowing it would do no good to further the animosity between the two companies. It was just so Casey to try and coax the man from the danger. Where he usually came across as gruff and victims were scared into obedience, Casey managed to always be gentle despite the dangerous circumstances, voice quiet and soothing but firm at the same time.
Severide shook his head of any thoughts concerning Casey as he had been doing since that afternoon in the hospital waiting room. He had noticed the odd shift in their relationship when Casey had refused to leave him to burn in the flames but it was too confusing to even think about it, so he had chosen to just ignore it for the time being. Not exactly healthy, he knew but with every other detrimental thing in his life, what was one more?
Severide's thoughts weren't able to stray far however because Casey suddenly appeared out of the smoke billowing from the door, pulling an older man along with him, a supportive arm slung around his waist. He deposited the man on the sidewalk before turning to the woman who had been pacing a hole in the concrete and bad mouthing every firefighter that walked by.
"This your place, Ma'am?" Casey asked in his best Lieutenant's voice, something that Severide used to tease the younger man about all the time. Severide pushed the thought along with the twisting feeling in his stomach it brought, away quickly.
"You're damn right it is," the short, stacked woman answered testily.
"That your microwave down in the basement?" Casey continued, earning more attention from his strange line of questioning.
"Oh, what of it?"
"The frayed end of the electric cord started this fire. Place would've burned to the ground if not for this man. He's a hero."
Severide pursed his lips in attempt to hold back his smile. It was a thin lie and any firefighter who had paid any sort of attention at the academy would have caught it but the woman would take his word as gold and Casey knew it. The woman's previously hard expression was already softening as she gazed at his tenant.
"Sir," Otis said, offering his hand for the bewildered gentleman to shake. "I just want to say, I've never seen a civilian act so bravely."
There were quiet snorts from both companies as Otis laid it on thick, but apparently it worked because as soon as Casey and Otis turned away, the woman was drawing the man into her arms and professing how worried she'd been for him.
Severide caught Casey's eyes, the blue orbs sparkling with mirth and he was just opening his mouth to speak, lips upturned in an easy smile when he saw in his periphery the sight of the candidate leaning against the ladder with just his thigh and hip, both hands clutched around his axe.
His head snapped fully around and for a moment all he could see was Andy climbing the ladder with Casey on his heels both laughing and joking, having no idea what was about to happen. But then he blinked and it was only Mills, looking down from his perch on the ladder to laugh and joke with some of the other truck men.
"Hey! Candidate!" Severide yelled, noting distantly that his tone and volume was perhaps too harsh for the slight but he couldn't bring himself to care. His yell had caught the young firefighter's attention - as well as every other person in the vicinity - and he watched as the smile slid from the young man's face. "One hand on the beam at all times! I don't care if you're carrying a damn cow!"
"Ok Kelly." And suddenly there was Casey, strangely enough watching him rather than the candidate. "He gets it," he continued, voice calm but firm.
Severide whipped back around to pin Casey to the spot with a glare, anger that he hadn't even realised he'd let go off, rushing back in a second. "Yeah, he better," Severide spat back before turning on his heel and stomping off back to his truck, swinging himself into the front seat while his men scrambled to follow.
He tried not to hear Casey's words from the other day as the truck peeled away from the curb, but they seemed to be echoing in his head, "Last to show, first to go. That's the rescue squad." He glanced in the side mirror to see Casey admonishing the candidate who had his head ducked slightly in shame. Severide let his eyes flicker away again but not before he saw Casey dismiss the man and turn to gaze after the retreating truck and Severide swore he could feel the burning gaze right up until they turned the corner.
On the ride back to the house, as though triggered by his earlier irritation with the candidate his shoulder started to buzz with aggravation, a searing pain soon spreading right from the joint of his shoulder all the way down to his fingertips. He tried not to make it obvious as he slipped his left hand under his shirt to knead at the spasming muscles but he knew that the soft groans of pain weren't going unnoticed by his squad. Wisely they chose not to comment.
By the time they were pulling into the driveway, Severide knew he wouldn't be able to work the rest of the shift without getting some kind of relief; so once he had shedded his turnout gear and left the men with the arduous daily duty of cleaning the squad truck from top to bottom, he walked over to the ambulance rig, trying to inject some nonchalance into his stroll.
Shay and Dawson were preoccupied with their own shiftly task of taking inventory so they didn't notice him at first. Then Dawson just stared at him uncomprehendingly as he hovered, all but daring him to voice what he wanted. But Severide just bit his lip and stared back meaningfully, until she cleared her throat irritably, jumped from the rig and stalked off, muttering under her breath something about needing a drink.
Things between him and Dawson since his and Casey's split had been chilly to say the least. She had always been more Casey's friend than his, and now that they weren't exactly on speaking terms, she had made her side clearly known just as Shay had done.
Shay shot him an unimpressed look and focussed back on her task of counting medicine bottles. If she knew what he wanted then she didn't say anything. But of course she wouldn't; Severide knew that. Shay had made her disapproval more than clear and on multiple occasions.
"I need something," he finally said, pitching his voice low, wary of how easily rumours spread in the house.
Shay's hands paused as she was returning a box of vials back to their place and she eyed the box as though it had committed some wrongdoing against her before heaving a sigh and reaching for a small vial of clear liquid. She closed her fist around it, hesitated before finally pressing it into his palm. In that moment of hesitation Severide felt his blood run cold, realising just how much he had come to depend on Shay for these vial's of relief.
Which was why he stopped breathing completely when she turned to him and said, meeting his eyes for the first time. "It's the last one."
There was a long pause where Severide grappled with what to say. There had been no part of him that had been prepared for this. When he had went through every outcome, positive and negative, this one had never come up because he had never expected in any realm of possibility that Shay would so suddenly cut him off like this. This had been the one constant he had been depending on to get through this.
Finally he schooled his features and prayed that he hadn't let too much show. "Yeah," he agreed, trying to sound as unconcerned as possible.
Of course Shay didn't buy it for a second. "I mean it."
"Right. It's all good," he assured her and shoved the vial deep into the pocket of his pants and walked off before another word on the subject could be uttered. He tried not to let his fear show and hoped to god that his face was betraying none of his inner turmoil, because without these drugs Severide didn't know long he would last.
Severide made his way into the locker room, intent on dealing with the mess he had made earlier in his haste to respond to the call. He was straddling the bench, deciding to save the vial Shay had given him if this really was to be his last one when he caught sight of Casey wandering by. The man was dressed only in his work pants, water droplets still clinging to his bare chest, telling Severide that Casey had indulged in one of his normal post-call showers. Where most firefighters wouldn't bother to shower, especially after a simple call like that, it wasn't a surprise that Casey had. Severide remembered the blonde's hatred for the smell of smoke that clung to him for hours after a call.
"Morning," he called out, remembering suddenly his interaction with Heather that morning.
He watched as Casey stopped dead in his tracks, saw the muscles in back clenching and unclenching before he finally pulled his work polo over his head and turned back to face Severide, his hair stuck up in ten different directions.
Severide had to fight not to grin at the sight.
"Morning," Casey responded, the confusion in his voice making it come out more as a question.
"How are the Darden kids doing?"
Casey shot him a questioning look and rubbed a hand through his hair, only managing to change the directions of the unruly spikes. Severide had always wondered how hair so short managed to stick up so crazily. "You talked to Heather at all?" he added even though he knew Casey had.
"Uh yeah, I have actually. They're as good as can be expected, I suppose. You seen, 'em?"
"Yeah," Severide said, choosing to forgo describing how terrible that had gone. Things were only just getting back to semi-normal with Casey and he didn't want to do anything to disrupt their tenuous accord. As much as he liked being mad and having someone to blame, Severide had to concede that life was much easier when he and Casey weren't at each other's throats every ten seconds.
"I hear they're coming to the barbecue," Casey said trying to inject some happiness into his voice but both heard how it fell flat.
There was no point pretending the whole situation wasn't going to be uncomfortable for everyone involved. Regardless Severide responded with his own fake upbeat, "Good."
Silence settled between them, while Severide groped for a topic but Casey simply nodded at him before continuing around the corner to his own locker. Severide sighed at the awkwardness but pushed it aside when pain flared in his shoulder as he pulled on his boots. He stood, holding his right arm stiffly to his torso as it cried out in pain.
Inspired by his conversation with Casey, Severide made his way to his Chief's office, noting absently the new secretary sitting at the desk in admin. She was very pretty and he admired the predatory gleam in her dark eyes. Nevertheless he didn't bother to stop and say hello, intent on getting out of the barbecue and the uncomfortableness it was bound to bring.
"Hey Chief, you got a second?" he said, peering into the office and knocking gently on the doorframe.
"Sure, Kelly," Boden replied, putting the down the report he had been intent on.
"Looking for a few extra shifts this month. How's Saturday sound?" he asked trying for nonchalance.
Boden wasn't fooled. "Saturday's barbeue."
Severide tried to pass it off in indifference. "I've been there before."
But Boden wasn't having it. "No way. I need every man on deck on this one."
"Chief," Severide implored. "I could really use the cash."
"Ask me next month," Boden said, his tone plus the way he refocused his attention on the report in front of him telling Severide that he was dismissed.
Severide froze however on his way out at the sound of the bells blaring through the house, Boden half rising from his chair as they waited for the announcement. However instead of the familiar voice of the dispatch officer, they heard the voice of one of the engine boys saying, "Smoke-eater in the house."
They joined the Truck men milling out onto the apparatus floor, knowing who it had to be. Severide ignored the pang in his chest at the 'welcome back' calls to Herrmann, trying not to think about how Andy had never gotten that. He tried to catch Casey's eye, wondering if he too was thinking about Andy but the Truck Lieutenant's eyes were firmly fixed on Herrmann, mouth twisted into a small smile at the man's antics. But Severide swore he saw something flash across his eyes before they cleared again.
The bubble of laughter and conversation dulled when Boden made his way to the front of the crowd of firefighters, taking in the sight of his old friend with a smile. "Glad you're back, Herrmann. We're a better house with you here."
Herrmann bowed his head humbly. "Thanks Chief."
Severide felt his stomach lurch when the smile dropped from the Chief's face and he shifted slightly to address the group at large, knowing it couldn't be anything good. "Everyone, later we're going to have a whiteboard session about what happened in the Darden incident last month. I expect you all to be there." There was a moment of strained silence where glances were swapped between the two Lieutenants of 51. When Boden started talking again there was a quiet whisper of breath, as if everyone had been holding their breaths. "On another note, this here is Nicki Rutkowski," Boden continued, gesturing to the pretty secretary that Severide had noticed earlier.
Cruz let out a quiet, appreciative noise echoing the thoughts of most firefighters present. Severide felt those dark eyes move onto him and met them for only half a second before glancing away, knowing - and dreading - what the Chief was going to say next, hand finding the bridge of his nose where he could feel a headache forming already.
"She's going to be working with us next month, helping out with the payroll. Her father is one of my oldest friends. We were in the Navy together, so you all just treat her like she's your very own…" Boden hesitated for a moment, catching sight of Cruz's appreciative look before finishing meaningfully, "...sister."
Cruz's eyes jerked up from their assessment of Nicki's body and he nodded his understanding, mixed with thinly veiled disappointment and glanced away pointedly.
"Thanks for having me," she said, her voice sugar sweet. But the smirk her thin, red lips had twisted into had too much meaning behind it for her to be innocent.
Ever the diplomatic one, it was Herrmann who welcomed her to the house. But also being Herrmann he had to throw in a joke about not screwing up their paychecks.
But surprisingly enough Nicki responded with her own joke, making the men laugh. Being such a close-knit House made it practically impossible for any outsider to work their way inside. But maybe Nicki would last anyway.
Any further conversation was cut off by the scream of alarms and the men burst into action, donning their gear, collecting helmets and masks from the equipment room before swinging themselves up into the trucks and screeching out onto the roads, alarms loud in the otherwise quiet streets.
The trucks pulled to a stop in the industrial sector of Chicago, the Chief's truck and the ambulance right on their heels.
"What's going on?" Boden barked, taking in the disheveled construction sight.
"Foundation collapsed. There's three guys down in the basement hole."
Making a snap decision, Boden ordered the Engine boys to prepare a 2½ hose before leading the way up onto the platform overlooking the collapsed area. Severide hovered over one shoulder as Boden crouched down to get a good look and saw out of the corner of his eye, Casey move to his other shoulder.
Together they looked out, knowing in that uncanny way of their, born of years working together, what the other two would be looking at. Severide could see Casey's mouth moving wordlessly and knew he would be committing every abrasion he could see to memory, ready to tell the Ambo girls what to expect. Severide, on the other hand, was looking at the structure of the cement and cataloguing the best ways to retrieve each person. Boden would be putting it all together, thinking about how to best minimise loss of life without putting any of his men in danger.
The foreman of the sight was talking about how it happened, not realising that he wasn't being listened to, the men already too focussed on their task to be worried about what he was saying.
"There's no fire, but let's drop the 2 ½ into the hole. From the ladder," Boden said calmly.
There was a clamour over the radio as the men still by the trucks hurried to do as instructed.
"Cruz let's move fast on this."
The ladder whirred into action, Cruz following Boden's directions as he guided it out over the foundation collapse. The engine boys jumped into action as soon as it was in position, dragging the hose up and over the end, dangling it out over the sight.
"Now charge it."
On the Chief's command the firefighter's still down by the truck, pumped it full of air, causing it to inflate into a cylinder, stable enough for the men to slide down it. Casey was first, moving without hesitation, sliding down. Otis followed right on his heels and together they approached the closest victim, a white male surrounded on all sides by solid blocks of concrete. However other than a few scrapes on his face and neck, he didn't look all that injured.
Otis confirmed as much as he knelt down to get a closer look. "I don't think we should move him though," Otis said, glancing up at his Lieutenant, both thinking about how many injuries could be hidden beneath the surface of the man's skin.
Casey agreed and used his radio to talk to the paramedics. "Dawson, you down there?"
"Go for Dawson," came her muffled reply through the radio.
"We need you up here."
"Shay and Dawson are on their way down," Boden informed them and just moments later Shay was landing lightly next to them.
Dawson came next and only spared a second to get her bearings and mutter, "That was a first," and joined them.
Once he'd made sure they were right with the victim, Casey left the paramedics with Otis and moved to help shift the debris on top of another man who was lying on the precipice on a great hole in the foundation. This man was in much worse shape, covered in dust and dirt with a large laceration spanning his forehead, but they had to get him away from the treacherous edge, so together Casey and Herrmann helped him to first sit up and then stand.
"Peter's farther down," the man groaned as he stumbled to his feet. "I heard him talking but I couldn't see him."
Casey handed the arm he held over to Mouch and ordered him and Herrmann to get the man back onto the street where another ambulance would meet them. He took a few steps and dropped to his knees to glance down into the pit. Sure enough, with the aid of his flashlight, Casey spotted the aforementioned Peter, an older man with greying hair. The blood staining his face caught the torch's light making it look almost black.
"Peter?"
"I knew this was gonna be a bad day." The man's voice was quiet and hoarse and he had to cough several times before he was able to continue. "Told my wife this morning I had a premonition."
"Are you hurt?" Despite the alertness of the man, Casey was worried about a possible head injury due to the randomness of his speech. Most victims in this situation would be in full panic mode, begging to get them out of there. To Casey's relief, Peter focussed on the question and answered in fair detail.
"I can't breathe. Can't move." Casey tracked the torch up and down Peter's body, noting the great slab of stone that was pinning Peter's leg down.
"All right. We'll get you out," he said, his voice steady before yelling over his shoulder, "I need three pike poles and a saw."
The firefighter's jumped into action, trying to get the equipment down around the other two victims who were being lifted out of the construction site. Casey cursed the chaos and the lack of safe ways down. Severide joined him at the edge of the hole and it only took him one glance to arrive at the same conclusion as Casey: Peter's time was running out fast.
"How you doing down there, Peter?"
There was a long pause before Peter gasped back, "I've been better."
"I'm going in," Severide said immediately.
"It's unstable," Casey said without looking away from Peter, who had started to gasp shallowly below them. But there was something about Severide's silence that had Casey glancing over to find a small smile on Severide's face, eyes glinting with adrenaline.
"Aren't we all?" He clapped a hand on Casey's shoulder momentarily and before the younger man could protest was swinging himself into the pit, using the exposed beams as footholds.
Casey fought the urge to curse all over again before calling out to the nearest firefighter's, preparing to widen the narrow entrance for when Severide got the victim out.
The air down in the hole was choked with dust and dirt and Severide had to take several deep breaths or he wouldn't be useful to anyone.
Peter watched Severide's long appraisal of the situation quietly, only speaking once the firefighter's gaze had returned to his face. "Not so bad, right?" he joked.
Severide didn't answer and shifted closer, tugging off his helmet and crouching down beside the man. "It's Peter, right?" he said, just for something to say. He received a shaky nod in return. "Can you move your foot?"
"No. I haven't even felt it for half an hour," the man said, stumbling over his words. Severide grimaced and slid his hands under the concrete, trying to shift the unyielding stone. He huffed out a breath of exertion before finally leaning back, failing to move it even an inch.
"How about the rest of you?"
"Can't breathe too good." Peter's breath rattled as he dragged air in and out and Severide's hands were there in an instant, feeling and probing until Peter let out a pain filled gasp.
"Okay, okay." As far as he could tell there was no external injuries but at that point that's what Severide would have been hoping for. Bleeding where he can see it is much easier to deal with.
"Ju-just get my foot out, I'll be fine," Peter croaked.
"All right, we're gonna get you out of here."
"Do me one favour," Peter said with a sudden intensity.
"Yeah?"
"No lies."
Severide grimaced but relented. "Fair enough. I think you're bleeding on the inside. If that's true, your foot is the least of your problems."
Peter nodded shakily and as he processed that Severide glanced up to where Casey's face had reappeared.
"Casey we need this hole opened up."
"On it," he responded, nodding shortly and glanced away to someone Severide couldn't see. "Go Cruz."
There was the roar of a chainsaw starting up and Severide braced himself for the debris was bound to come raining down on them. While Cruz worked away at the beams above him, Severide busied himself cleaning away the blood from Peter's face and chest.
"We'll get you back to your wife in no time."
"Yeah sure."
Severide couldn't help the grin that spread across his lips at Peter's disbelief. "You saying I've got a bad poker face?"
"I'm saying I'd be all-in o that one."
Severide chuckled, having respect for anyone who could joke in a situation like this. "Well you're breathing and talking, so that's good."
Suddenly the whole foundation shook, dust and debris hailing from the roof and from the startled yells from above, Severide knew that the whole construction site must have shifted. He lurched forward, trying to cover Peter as best he could.
"Severide." Casey's voice was strained with worry and he had to force himself not to read too much into that. Not here anyway. Maybe later in the privacy of his own apartment.
So he just yelled back a "we're fine" and concentrated on Peter's pale face in front of him, the one he had to get out of there. The one who was getting closer to slipping away every second. He tipped his head back and called out to Casey, "Get Dawson over here!"
Dawson's dark face, streaked white by dust appeared almost immediately after Casey's yell for her and her keen, dark eyes assessing the situation instantly.
"His lower leg is trapped and there's internal bleeding."
"No way to release it?"
"No." Not without time and equipment anyway.
"Other than that, everything's peachy," Peter joked, before turning his head away overcome by a hacking cough.
"All right, I'll call for a trauma surgeon."
"How long?"
Dawson's mouth turned down and her eyes softened, "I don't know." And then she was slipping away, hurrying off to call the surgeon.
"What would a trauma surgeon do that you couldn't?"
"Take off your foot." His tone was cold and clinical, Severide knew. But he had learnt early on, that in this line of work sacrifices needed to be made if a person's life was going to be saved. He had only been a candidate for a month when he had had to assist in the amputation of a colleague; sacrificing the seasoned firefighter's two legs for his life. He'd had nightmares for months afterwards.
There was a loud crash from up above and out of sight and Severide glanced up to see Casey looking over his shoulder, biting his lips as he thought. He looked back down and caught Severide's eye. It was clear that whatever was happening up there, required Casey's leadership but Severide also understood his trepidation. If he was in Casey's position, no way would he feel comfortable leaving his man down an unstable hole. But it was unlikely that Casey would be able to do anything for them anyway so he waved the man away.
"Go Casey, we'll be fine here."
Casey nodded and Severide turned back to Peter but he could feel Casey's eyes on him for a few more seconds before he moved away. He focussed on Peter to find the older man watching him curiously.
"What's your name, kid?"
"Severide. Kelly. Everyone pretty much calls me Severide." He'd always hated his first name - having taken enough shit for it in high school - so much that it was only Casey he'd ever really let use it.
"You married, Kelly?"
"No," Severide answered, resolutely not thinking of how close he'd come once upon a time.
Peter's eyes flickered up quickly to where Casey's face had been before settling back on Severide. "That your guy?"
"How- no. No he isn't."
"Come on, kid. I've been around long enough to know how to spot love."
And Severide had to fight down the irrational urge to ask from whom Peter is spotting this. Instead he just shook his head, not quite able to meet Peter's eye. "No, me and Matt- that fell apart a while back."
Peter hummed suspiciously and his eyes leapt about as he read Severide's face. "Well don't wait too long, Kelly. To make things better with him," he added at Severide's questioning glance.
Severide didn't answer, instead regarded the older man curiously. While Severide himself had never faced any really bad prejudice because of his sexuality, he knew from enough horror stories from Casey, that he'd been extremely lucky to have gone to a pretty progressive high school. He'd never let the minimal hate bother him either way, he would love who he would and if people had a problem with it, well that wasn't up to him. The comments that had been hurled at him when walking hand in hand with Casey down the street had almost always come from older people. Which was why he found Peter's easy acceptance so strange.
Still, there was no need to go into the politics of same-sex relationships at the bottom of a crumbling pit, so Severide changed the subject.
"Tell me about your wife."
"Name's Georgie. Her dad wanted a boy, but he kept getting girls."
Severide chuckled, thinking back to his childhood and the barbershop that had stood on the corner. "There was a barbershop on my street named Harris and Sons. Mr Harris named it when his wife was pregnant with their first; ended up having five girls."
The laugh that his story prompted quickly turned into a choking cough, stealing the breath from the old man's lungs and Severide fought a grimace at the trail of blood that slid over Peter's chapped lips and down his chin. He reached out to steady the man against the rock as Shay appeared above him, instructing him to hook the saline bag up to his arm.
"How long on that surgeon?"
"Fifteen minutes."
Severide bit back a growl of frustration and worked on getting the saline into Peter's arm, trying not to think about how impossibly long fifteen minutes was going to be.
"Kelly." Severide didn't glance up at his name, dreading the words that he knew were going to come. Undeterred, Peter continued, "We don't have time for a surgeon. You're going to have to do it. Take off the foot."
Severide finally slid the needle through the tanned skin of Peter's forearm, pumping the saline through his body. He could feel Peter's gaze burning into his forehead and he finally looked up, schooling his expression into a personally blank mask. It wouldn't be the first time Severide had to perform a field amputation but it never got any easier; watching the blade chop into blood and bone, the sickening sound of the limb being detached. There was a reason he'd chosen to be a firefighter and not a paramedic.
Peter's gaze was pleading and when he spoke his voice was desperate. "Get me out of here. Get me home."
Staving off the inevitable, Severide yelled, "Tell that surgeon to hurry the hell up."
He could hear Dawson barking at the dispatch officer up on the surface but he blocked her out, focussing instead on Peter who was choking on more blood as it rushed up his throat and dribbled over his chin.
He could barely get out more than a few reassuring words when the pit gave an almighty shudder, reverberating from where the foundation was gradually cracking apart. Severide glanced up, preparing for an update. Casey face appeared over the edge of the hole, helmet askew from where he had apparently stumbled, the effects of the shudder evidently hitting them even harder.
One glance at Casey's face and Severide knew what he was going to say. Nevertheless it didn't make hearing the words any easier. "We have to pull back; it's going to give."
Peter stared between the two men wordlessly while the Lieutenant's held each other's gazes. He knew it would be useless to ask Casey to go and leave him here. Not only would Casey not do it but Boden would hand him his ass on a silver platter if he managed to survive it. Swallowing thickly he glanced down again, thinking hard. Distantly he could hear Peter telling him to go and that it was alright, but his focus was on the feet still trapped firmly under the slab of stone, coming to a decision.
"Casey, I need a sawzall," he ordered. Casey was gone between one blink of an eye and the next and Severide found himself thanking God or whoever else listening that out of all the shifts and houses in all the states, somehow he had ended up working with Casey. Quick, efficient, Casey. Who cared just as much as he did. Who gave just as much as he did. Who understood everything he was thinking with just a glance.
He shook away the thoughts, startled by how they were leaning towards intimate and focussed back on the coughing man in front of him. The man who couldn't have more than a few minutes left in his life. Severide hissed out a breath, ashamed that he had let himself get distracted like that.
"Hey, Peter."
Peter's eyes fluttered opened again tiredly and he managed a weak smile with his red stained lips. "Yeah, I'm still with you, Kelly."
"Tell me about Georgie."
The chuckle that that prompted was not much more than a whisper. "I," he paused as another body wracking cough overcame him. "I married above my head. Been playing catch-up ever since."
"Do you have children?"
A bitter-sweet smile flitted across Peter's lips. "No, we tried."
Severide tugged his eyes away from Peter's half-lidded ones to grab the saw Casey had lowered down to him. He tugged the rope holding it free and pressed the button a few times to make sure it was working properly. He was just lining it up with Peter's shin, the tourniquet he'd fastened earlier already restricting blood from reaching the uncooperative limb, when Peter's hand fastened around his wrist. His grip was troublingly weak but when Severide glanced up questioningly, his gaze was startling determined.
"Kelly, you got a phone?"
Severide had seen enough people die to know not to question their final demands so Severide just nodded and without saying a word tugged his phone from his leg pocket.
Casey felt the dread build in the pit of his stomach when he didn't immediately hear the expected whirr of the saw and reaction from Peter. His fears were confirmed when Severide's hand dumped the saw over the side and the rest of his body followed quickly after, taking Casey's offered hand for support.
Severide glanced between Casey and Dawson before saying shortly, "It's a recovery now," and walking away without another word.
Casey ducked his head briefly and dropped to his knee to peer over the side. Sure enough, with his eyes closed and the barest trace of a peaceful smile on his lips was the worker, looking strangely small at the bottom of the pit.
Casey heaved a heavy breath before signalling for his men to begin the recovery of the body, trying not to add the death to the mental tally inside his head. The tally of all the victims he couldn't save.