I don't like that Kelly and Matt never really talked about the blame game they played with each other after Andy's death. I've always thought they should have a heart to heart. Sometimes it takes dire circumstances for something like that to happen. Hope you enjoy.

The activity above the two lieutenants was a nonstop, frenetic scurry of people joining together, united in their mission of saving lives, not letting terrorists win out.

While emergency responders and regular civilians were helping the injured, Voight and his team were on the trail of a terrorist. They'd gotten a good description from Jason, the man Casey and Kelly saved. Turned out he saw a definite suspect...Voight had his computer nerd, Jin, checking every camera in the area to ID the guy. It was only a matter of time, a matter of time.

"Erin, there's nothin' you can do here. I need you," Voight said softly, or as softly as his raspy voice would allow. He wasn't trying to be cold hearted. Hell, he even liked Severide, but someone had fucked with his city, and he would not stand for that.

"You have this. Right?" he asked Boden who was hanging on every word of Casey, every word or sound from Kelly. The worry lining his face as he watched the small loader carry pile after pile to the side, digging deeper. Clarke barked out instructions...the trick was getting enough removed to free the men quickly but not cave everything in on them. The remaining house was also precariously standing upright, threatening to tumble down.

"Yes, go. Catch the assholes who did... all this," Boden said not caring who stayed, who left. His only thought on his two men below.

Erin couldn't pry herself away. She watched the commotion powerless to do anything. She couldn't hear Kelly, relying on Boden to say when he spoke, what he said, what Casey said. It wasn't a comfortable position for this woman used to taking charge, to acting, not sitting idly by.

She felt herself being pulled away by her partner, Jay.

"Boden will call you as soon as he's free. There's nothing you can do," he echoed Voight's words. He also feared what would be pulled from the house. He didn't want that vision to be what haunted Erin for years, for the rest of her life. In a strange way, he knew if this thing went bad, even Severide wouldn't want that to be the last picture of him burned into her memory.

She let herself be led from the scene, mirroring Jay's moves. He took off running, she ran one step behind. He questioned a witness, she tried to pipe in, tried to wrap her brain around what was going on in her city. There was a damn terrorist on the loose. Someone who wanted people dead. A killer.

She held her phone in her hand. If I don't let go of it, Kelly won't let go. He'll be okay, she thought. Boden called once to say they were still digging him out.

"Casey," Kelly whispered, his voice so low it didn't sound like the one Matt knew so well. The familiar Severide swagger found even in his words was gone. Stripped away by a ton of house.

"Yeah, bud," answered Matt shining the light in his friend's face, growing increasingly worried, no just plain scared with how he looked. The white of it, the eyes not opening at all.

"Kelly," he prompted.

"You know when Andy died?"

"Yeah, I know, Kelly. We don't need to talk about this now." Casey didn't like where this was going. He knew what it meant. "Please, Kelly."

"None of it was your fault. Was so pissed..." he took a couple of short breaths. "Mad. It was better to be mad at you and not And-y." On the last word, Kelly let out a sound that made Casey lose control. He had to get him out of there. Now.

"Jesus Christ, Boden! Do what you need to do! Now!" Casey was screaming thrashing his body from side to side in frustration. He tried moving the pile of bricks in front of him. If he could just reach Kelly, hold his hand, sit next to him, it would be okay.

"We're almost in. You two hang in there. That's an order." Boden yelled another command at Clarke. The firefighter ignored his chief, telling the driver of the loader to clear out. He and five men, none from 51, began removing the last of the collapse by hand.

"Kelly. I know this. We're past all this. You weren't responsible either. You know that, right?" Casey was pleading with his friend. Why the hell didn't I say this before, a month ago, a year ago? "Answer me. Kelly, answer me."

Casey's eyes were wide with a fear he'd felt only a few times before in his life...watching Andy enter that room, trying to revive Hallie in the ambulance. That terror deep in his heart made him feel like he was going to lose it, scream.

The sound of Kelly's voice helped Matt steady his own breathing. Keep it together, he told himself. He didn't bother turning the radio off when they were talking anymore. Boden would know how desperate things were by now.

"Shay...Sh-Shay," Kelly mumbled.

"It's me, Casey. I'm here with you. Shay's not down here."

"I know. You gotta tell her..." Kelly's voice broke again.

"I'm not telling her a damn thing. You can tell her yourself. You hear me?"

Kelly's lucid thoughts had long been replaced by the scattered images of a man losing a battle to stay alive. The pain he felt was gone, replaced by a numbness in his body. He somehow knew this was bad. He was so cold but tried to tell himself it was because he was in a T-shirt and sweats only.

"You cold, Casey?" he asked his friend.

Before Matt could answer, he saw some of the boards above him move. He saw light peak in, and he made out Clarke's face through a small slit. The pressure on his body was lessened, a pressure he hadn't realized was on him.

"Kelly! They're here! Clarke's getting us out."

There was no response, the din of shuffling wood, thrown bricks, and the whoops and hollering from Clarke the only sounds.

"He's here!" yelled Casey pulling himself out and pointing to the area right in front of him.

He saw Kelly's body appear from the depths of that house, a dusty, bloody mess. He looked like a mummy entombed for centuries, immobile, limp, covered in a white powder. The length of his leg all the way up to his hip crushed beneath concrete and a huge wooden beam. As Clarke and two men lifted off the last of it, a paramedic moved in with Casey nudged up next to him.

"Kelly!" Casey touched his friend's arm and felt him flinch, pull back.

"Don't touch him!" said the paramedic shortly. He needed help but knew none was coming. The only assistance, right in front of him. "Cut the pants," he instructed handing Matt a pair of scissors from his emergency bag.

Casey got to work, the job of helping Kelly would save him from complete panic rising in his gut.

The paramedic handed Matt an inflatable splint while he put pressure on Severide's crushed leg obviously causing pain...Kelly called out loudly. Casey wanted him to make some sound to show he was alive...not this sound.

Chief Boden stood by feeling utterly useless. He took a step forward with Clarke pulling him back again.

"Chief, we need to stay outta the way."

"I haven't called anyone yet...Shay. I need to let Shay know what's going on. Jesus, I've got to call Benny too."

"I'll call Shay and the rest of the guys." Clarke was on his phone to his blonde friend trying to stay calm and not worry her before they knew what they were dealing with. He underplayed it saying they'd gotten Kelly out, no breathing tube, his heart going strong.

"Meet us at Lakeshore," he said not wanting her to come to the scene before him...Kelly looking like a damn corpse. No, she would lose it if she saw the state of her best friend.

Matt put the air splint on Severide's badly damaged leg. Kelly's breathing was labored and he called out every time he felt a slight movement, whenever his hip jostled slightly. He was incoherent not knowing who was making everything hurt or what was happening all around him. The only thing he was aware of was that the pain was back, with a vengeance. The reprieve he had earlier was long gone, that numb cold encompassing his body was now replaced with a burning fire, running from his foot all the way up to his waist. He tried rolling to a side, a pair of hands forcing him flat on his back. He thrashed around a little, desperately seeking a position that hurt less. He knew he was screaming, but was powerless to stop it.

Boden and Casey had never seen Kelly like this. Even in the midst of his broken neck, at the absolute worst of it, he'd suffered in silence, never letting anyone know of the pain he faced. He ate those pills and swallowed the pain with them. There was no swallowing this. He was simply a victim they were fighting to save, a victim in a whole lotta hurt.

It took a considerable amount of time, but finally an ambulance was freed up, and Kelly was rushed to Lakeshore. The hospital was a mess, doctors and nurses running back and forth, so many casualties.

Casey was at Kelly's side, holding his friend's hand as he rode in the ambo. Boden showed up minutes after. Shay was next followed by Erin. Then the guys started trickling in. Clarke was later, detained when he stumbled upon another victim with no one else to help.

Shay kept asking Boden for details. He wasn't in the sharing mood. She interrogated Casey, but he was pretty tight lipped also.

"What did his leg look like?" she asked again.

Dawson rushed in saying she was working with her new team members at 5 along another stretch of the race path. She hadn't checked her phone in hours, really serving as paramedic and not firefighter. So many injured, so many like her friend who was now somewhere in the back.

"What happened, babe? Tell me how Kelly looked, what did his leg looked like?"

"Let's just wait for the doctor, Gabby. There's nothing Shay and you can do from out here," he answered wearily.

"We just wanna know what kind of condition he's in."

No you don't, thought Casey. Before he could answer, a doctor rushed out yelling Kelly's name. The family from 51 all stood up.

"We're waiting for an operating room to open up. It's giving us time to stabilize him. One should be free within an hour," the doctor started.

"An hour? Can't he be transferred somewhere else?" Shay asked tears welling up with nowhere to go but down her cheeks.

"I would not recommend moving him right now. He is in extreme critical condition. Your friend's leg, his hip has suffered extreme trauma. They are both literally crushed."

Casey knew this, Boden knew. They'd seen it, but hearing those words brought a new reality to it. One that couldn't be denied.

The doctor went on to talk about something called compartment syndrome, how the muscles were compressed, crushed, dying. About bone fragments, reconstructive surgery. He even mentioned a possible hip replacement.

"No, that's not for Severide. That's for someone who's eighty," chimed in Hermann, knowing his younger friend would never go for that.

"Unfortunately, it's for anyone who doesn't have a working hip…twenty two or seventy two, injuries don't discriminate. We're getting ahead of ourselves. To be honest, we don't even know if we're going to be able to save the leg at this point."

The silence in the room spoke volumes.

Luck seems to always be on Severide's side, but maybe it's just run out.