Sorry this has been a long time coming. RL has been more than a little problematic lately, and writing and reading and just about everything nice in life has had to take a backseat.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and review/message - your encouragement has been greatly appreciated.

"I swear to God, Johnson, if you leave your turnout gear in the middle of the floor again I will have you scrubbing toilets for the rest of your candidacy!" Lieutenant Wallace Boden stated firmly.

"Sorry, LT," the candidate mumbled as he hurried to move his gear to the correct spot.

"You sure this is where you want to be, kid?" an unfamiliar voice drew Boden's attention from behind him and he turned to find a stranger there talking to a figure that took Boden far longer to recognise than it should have done.

"Boden likes to sound like a hard-ass, but he's a soft touch at heart," came the reply, the accompanying mischievous smile almost daring the Lieutenant to contradict him.

"Kelly?" Boden's gruff voice finally managed to ask, shocked as he took in the battered figure that stood before him.

"Hey," the kid replied tentatively, looking uncomfortable as he realised that he was the recipient of more than just Boden's attention.

"Let's go to my office," Boden suggested before sweeping a look at his men that clearly stated they were to keep their mouths shut.

"I've got to get back to the shop," the stranger said to Kelly before turning another thoroughly assessing gaze on the uniformed man in front of him.

"Thanks, Cesar," Kelly replied as he made to shrug off the jacket only to be halted by a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Keep it, kid," the kindly Hispanic said. "Just promise to come see me in a few weeks, let me know you're doing ok."

"I will," Kelly promised. "Thanks…for everything."

"Not a problem," Cesar once again shook off the youngster's gratitude. "You know where I am if you need any help," he offered sincerely as he held out his hand.

"Thanks," Kelly laughed in an effort to fight off his turbulent emotions, feeling as though the word, no matter how often he repeated it, was wholly inadequate. He looked at the proffered hand and grabbed it before pulling Cesar into a quick hug, unable to voice the depth of his gratitude at the kindness of a stranger during a time he had needed it most.

"Keep in touch, kid," Cesar demanded firmly before moving away from Kelly towards to Boden – Kelly had insisted that the man was to be trusted, but Cesar rarely trusted anyone until they had proven themselves. "The kid's been through hell, you screw him over and we'll be having words," he promised quietly before heading back towards the road and his car, offering Kelly a final wave and a solemn nod of the head as he went.

Kelly watched him go and carried on watching even as Cesar got into his car and drove off. A hand on his shoulder made him jump, no matter how gently it had been put there, and he turned to find the furrowed brows of Boden directed his way.

"Come on, Kelly," Boden said quietly, unsure of how to deal with a jumpy version of a kid who was usually so cocky. "Let's go back to my office and you can tell me what's going on."

Kelly bit his lip and looked back towards the exit before meeting Boden's eyes once again – seeing only worry on his behalf there he nodded his head quietly and followed the tall man through the house.

Boden was deeply concerned – he had known Kelly for years, known him since he was a tiny kid excitedly following the firemen's every step round the house with a deep sense of fascination about all that was going on around him. For as long as Boden had been a part of Fifty-One, Kelly had been there too, so much so in fact, that there was even a photo on the wall of the house with Kelly and his friend, Andrew Darden, no older than six dressed in turnout gear so big they were almost drowning in it.

What always caught Wallace's eye, though, was the fact that it wasn't Benny Severide standing behind the two children in the photo with a smile on his face, but him. When little Kelly showed up at the firehouse it had usually been because Benny hadn't managed to arrange a babysitter, and so the whole house took the kid and his friend under their wing, as they so often did for their own in times of need. While Kelly had initially tried to follow his father, he soon gave up and instead turned his attention to the other firemen at Fifty-One, which had caused friction with Benny on more than one occasion.

Boden didn't know what it was about himself that seemed to attract Kelly's attention, but from very early on the kid had managed to firmly entrench himself in the Squad Lieutenant's company, quietly following him around the house, excitement gleaming in his eyes as he avidly took in every detail of what was going on around him, from washing the truck to maintaining the tools to the frantic energy of racing out for a call. Kelly had even managed to wrangle a few ride-alongs out of Boden, after several assurances that he would stay in the truck. Somewhere in all of that interaction, Boden had come to have almost paternal feelings of affection for the boy.

It was a joy to see the kid interact with the various members of the firehouse, his quietly wicked sense of humour a match for even the most scathing of comments directed his way. The kid's sharply intuitive mind would take him far in life as a firefighter and Boden was sure that was exactly what Kelly was aiming for – he lived and breathed for it and would be a smoke-eater before he knew it. The boy's piercing gaze took in all before him, although he always did his best to stay out of their personal lives just as he sought to keep his own life away from the firehouse quiet.

Boden knew that things had been difficult for the boy since Benny had divorced his mother and quickly moved on to start another family. Kathleen Severide had always struck Boden as a fragile little thing – her frame, while tall, held not an ounce of extra weight, and her fine cheekbones, crystal-clear blue eyes and dark wavy hair were accentuated by her constantly pale complexion. There were always bags under her eyes, no doubt exacerbated by Benny's frequent misadventures, and with a near-constant expression of agonising sadness, her emotive eyes frequently made it look as though she were two steps away from crying her heart out.

Boden and the rest of the house had silently watched from the side-lines as Benny screwed up his small family unit before, seemingly oblivious, moving on to the next one and repeating his mistakes. No one said anything, not wanting to cause a rift in a work environment where trust in your colleagues was paramount, but it didn't stop them from feeling bad for a kid they had all come to know and care about.

Poor Kelly had only been ten by the time the ink on the divorce papers had dried, and family life had hardly been a bed of roses before then. While Benny had simply jumped from one warm bed into another, Kelly had been left behind to pick up the broken pieces of his mother from the floor and deal with the fallout. Wallace was well aware that Kelly had taken on a progressively large burden of responsibility for one so young, working to support his increasingly erratic mother whenever and wherever he could find it and doing everything in his power to keep anyone from asking too many questions about the quality of his home life.

Kelly used to come by the firehouse on occasion after the divorce, looking to connect with his father, no doubt, but after one too many disappointments the boy only started showing up when he knew Benny would be absent. With Benny's recent move up to Kenosha, Boden wondered if the visits would increase or if Kelly would feel awkward and unwelcome without the tenuous link of his father to Fifty-One. On the rare occasion that he did make it to the firehouse, sometimes with Andrew Darden in tow, sometimes alone, it was clear to see that Kelly Severide was very different from the excitable and carefree child he had been when Boden had first met him.

There was a quieter, more pensive side to Kelly these days, and an almost constant sense of fatigue about him, as though he were weighed down by more troubles than he could bear. While Kelly could still pull down a mask to smile and pretend that everything was ok, Boden had known the boy too long to take him at face-value and be fooled by a token show of happiness.

Wallace had done what he could, tried to utilise the somewhat paternal relationship they already shared to try and get the boy to open up, but Kelly was like a clam when it came to sharing his personal problems – he'd smile and shrug his shoulders and insist that he was 'fine' and that had only become worse as he'd advanced to his mid-teens. When it became more than apparent that Kelly wasn't going to talk about whatever it was that was bothering him, Boden had instead decided to distract him from his problems.

With the help of several other members of Fifty-One, men and women who had long since come to care about the broody child, they kept him entertained with stories from some of their wilder calls, bringing out laughter and disbelief in equal measure. They taught him the basics in maintenance and very soon learned that Kelly was a natural, his understanding of the mechanics involved far surpassing their own as he aged. They invited him to watch the drills and get involved with the inevitable betting and one-upmanship that always accompanied them, revelling in the levity of those moments.

But at the end of the day, Boden could tell it had all been a distraction, a known one and a welcome one, but nothing more than a fleeting distraction, nonetheless. Whereas Darden would leave all smiles, chattering excitedly away, Kelly's longing and lingering gaze directed back towards the firehouse gave away the depths of his despair at the precarious situation he found himself stuck in and indicated just how much he valued the sanctuary of Fifty-One, and Boden was at a complete loss as to how to help him.

Kelly had long since lost interest in platitudes and saw the promissory nature of the phrase 'everything will be alright' as tantamount to waving a red flag at Fate after spitting in her face, and any time Boden tried to offer words of reassurance Kelly angrily shrugged them off. He liked to take care of his problems on his own, rarely seeking help from anyone else, and Wallace suspected that part of that came from having a father so wholly unreliable as Benny Severide.

His mistrust of others, particularly those in positions of authority, his stubborn pride and his determined struggle for independence all helped to fuel his rather introverted approach to life when it came to problem-solving, leaving Boden and any others who wanted to help scratching their heads.

Now, Kelly had turned up black and blue and clearly uncomfortable with the very notion of talking about whatever had happened to him, and Boden was still stuck for ideas on what to do to help the boy.

"So," Boden began once they were settled in his tiny office, him on the rickety chair that looked as though it was going to collapse any second, and Kelly perched awkwardly on the edge of his narrow mattress doing his best to avoid the older man's eyes. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Kelly finally looked up and into Boden's eyes, seeing only concern and confusion there. He knew that he could trust the man, he had long since learnt that. What solace he had found at Fifty-One did not come about because of his father's presence, but because of Lieutenant Boden and all he had done to try and reach out to a lost and angry kid.

It was a common misconception that Kelly wanted to be a firefighter because of his father – while Benny Severide had undoubtedly been the one to introduce him to the concept, it had been Wallace Boden and Kelly's ready acceptance into the arms of Fifty-One that had cemented the idea in his head.

He couldn't deny that a large part of the appeal came from the excitement of the job – he'd only been observing on the side-lines but already the energy of a call carried with it an infectious adrenaline rush. Kelly had also seen what it meant to belong to a house like Fifty-One on a more personal level – a house that came with brothers and sisters who understood each other in a way that few others could manage, and carried each other's burdens without resentment and without counting up the tally at the end of the day. More than anything though, Kelly understood that it was the chance to be a part of something big, something meaningful – he couldn't save his mother, the last few weeks had been more than proof enough of that, but as a firefighter he could certainly save someone.

Spending time inside Fifty-One, Kelly had become familiar with a great many of the men and women who worked there, but Boden had been the one to earn his respect. Boden, the man who called him out on his crap even as he sought to understand the reasons behind Kelly's latest misadventure. Boden, who berated him for his troubles at school before encouraging him to knuckle down and focus. Boden, who scolded him for his reckless and impulsive behaviour only to sit him down and quietly tend to the fallout.

Benny Severide did his best to ignore his child and chose, instead, to focus on bolstering his already impressive professional reputation whenever and wherever possible. He let his wedding vows vanish into obscurity and his wife fade into the background as he found sexual satisfaction anywhere and everywhere except his marital bed. He abandoned his son in the shadows, seemingly more apathetic about his paternal duties than concerned about the consequences of his actions on his own kin. He left his family in pieces on the floor even as he sought to elevate his professional standing, determined to make sure that it was his name that was heard rather than that of Firehouse Fifty-One.

Wallace Boden, however, was a man who placed greater value on the ethos of the job rather than his own worth, on not only saving people on the job but helping them whenever he could. He kept on trying to save Kelly, to teach him that he was worth saving, and even though Kelly had never sought help from anyone that had never stopped Boden from offering, from always trying. To his own father he was all but invisible, and while Kelly didn't know who or what he was to Boden, he did know that the man could be counted on to be there when needed.

On his darker days, the trips to Fifty-One became about distractions, and Boden had always been willing and able to provide them – he wouldn't push for answers that Kelly wasn't yet ready to give, but would instead sit patiently by his side as he explained one aspect or another of the job that Kelly hoped to one day share with him.

Kelly loved his father, for all of his imperfections, and he couldn't imagine a day when he wouldn't strive to earn some modicum of approval from the man, if only to prove to himself that Benny Severide was wrong to abandon him so readily. However, for all that he loved his father, he didn't much like him – when he looked at Benny, he saw a firefighter and a damn good one at that, but he didn't see a good man and he certainly didn't see a good father, and that was a bitter pill to swallow.

When he looked at Boden he saw another damn good firefighter, but he also saw a man who always tried to do the right thing by everybody. Perhaps he looked at Boden through rose-tinted glasses because he only knew him within the confines of Fifty-One's walls, but of all the adults Kelly knew, Wallace Boden was one of the few who had not yet let him down.

"I…er…I don't really know where to start," Kelly mumbled. "Do you know about my mom?"

"No," Boden replied, a deep frown marring his features as events seemed to grow more complicated.

"She…er…went a little…crazy, I guess," Kelly finally said, still struggling to find the right words to describe his mother and what had happened, even a week after the event.

"Did she hurt you?" Boden asked, certain that few things could get the usually self-assured Kelly to get so tongue-tied.

"No," the teenager shook his head in denial, to Boden and to himself. He shifted in his seat trying to hide the grimace of pain that surely crossed his face, uncomfortable with the penetrating gaze being directed his way. The fresh pain of Anderson's and Jenkins's barrage helped dim the memory of his mother's attack, a few aches and pains and fading bruises were all that remained of the episode. The result of the assault from his so-called 'carers', however, was still felt all too keenly.

His arm, which Jenkins had twisted up and behind his back, felt like it was hanging from a thread made of fire, eliciting a deep and painful burning sensation whenever he moved it too far. The split lip, a result of a nasty right hook from Anderson, seemed to continually re-open, making conversation somewhat uncomfortable. The bump on the back of his head was tender to the touch, but other than a slight headache that seemed perfectly content to stay in the background, it was bearable.

His ribs, however, felt as though they were scraping away at his lungs with every breath, stealing the air from them when the pain got to be too much, and his stomach felt as though it were peppered with nails, pulling at his skin with every movement. The cold of the night had helped to dim that particular sensation, but as he warmed up and the adrenaline from his flight faded away, the lancing pain was wearing away at what little strength he had left.

"Not really, anyway," Kelly eventually offered. He knew that Boden was tenacious and would likely find out the truth of the matter in the end anyway, but he didn't want his mother to carry the blame for the carers' assault.

'Which means she hurt him some, at the very least', Boden thought to himself in frustration, unsure of what words of comfort he could offer the poor boy. "Do you know what set her off?"

"Oh yeah, she screamed it at me at the top of her lungs so I'm pretty sure the neighbours could tell you that," Kelly laughed bitterly. "You know how schools insist on those bullshit parent-teacher conferences? The ones where teachers insist on wasting time on a face-to-face while basically just regurgitating your last school report?"

"I'm not sure I'd call them 'bullshit'," Boden offered with a wry grin. "But yes, I know what you're talking about – school wasn't that long ago for me," he said with an arched eyebrow.

"I know, I know – they'd advanced from writing on papyrus to writing on slate by the time you went through the system," Kelly replied cheekily.

"Still young enough to knock you on your ass," Boden joked back, sobering immediately as he caught the way that Kelly subconsciously curled in on himself even at the obvious joke of violence, gingerly hugging his ribs.

"Anyway, she caught sight of someone there that she'd seen before…in her house…in her bed…with my dad…back when they were still married," Kelly shook his head angrily. He hadn't really had the chance to explore how he felt about that particular revelation, given that dealing with the fallout of his mother's outburst had been more prominent, but he couldn't deny that he was angry and resentful that Benny had yet again created more problems without once again being there to deal with the consequences.

"Oh," Boden said, not knowing what else there was to say.

"Yeah…'oh' is about right," Kelly lamented. "Turns out way back when, Benny got it on with a maths teacher who would later become my maths teacher. Needless to say, my mom was not impressed."

"Did she cause a scene?" Boden wondered aloud, trying to understand the ins and outs of the story. Kathleen Severide was normally such a quiet, retiring woman, but Wallace had heard her shout before and knew that her temper could lead to some vicious words, he just hoped those words had been directed at the father and not the son.

"Not there, no, apparently that was one of the few times she was able to keep her shit together. I guess she was saving it for when she got home," Kelly shrugged. "She was under the impression that I knew about it and kept it from her."

"I can see why she'd be angry with Benny," Boden admitted freely. "But she sure as hell had no right to get angry with you and I really can't understand why that would make her go 'crazy', as you said – she's known Benny's faults too long and too well to be naïve about it now."

"I don't know," Kelly shook his head. "She's been a little…off for a while now. She lost another job and she's been in bed most of the time since, sleeping and drinking mostly. Maybe this, and the fact that dear old dad is getting married again was just too much for her to handle."

"You don't need to make excuses for her, Kelly," Boden stated firmly.

"I'm not," Kelly denied. "Really!"

"Good," Boden nodded. "Because you are a sixteen year old boy and she is supposed to be the parent."

"Try telling her that," Kelly mumbled resentfully, fully feeling the sting of injustice at being the recipient of his mother's wrath over his father's actions. "Anyways, she checked herself into the psychiatric wing at UIC and I got dumped with Child Services."

"Benny?" Boden asked fiercely, quietly furious that Kelly had been forced into the care of the state rather than have Benny step up and be a proper father for once.

"Benny did what he always does when it comes to taking care of his family…absolutely nothing," Kelly pointed out bitterly.

Boden nodded, still unable to find the words that Kelly so desperately needed. He was all too familiar with Benny's rather oblivious, often confrontational approach to dealing with other people. There was a lot of professional respect between the two firemen, but beyond the confines of Fifty-One there was very little to bind them together, and Severide's continual mistreatment of his family, a common occurrence that Boden had been forced to watch from the side-lines all too often, was just one in a long list of grievances between the two.

"That doesn't explain this," Boden finally said, gesturing towards the battered frame of the teenager.

"A cop's word carries weight, doesn't it?" Kelly asked, unsure of just how much he was going to reveal to Boden. "Even an ex-cop?"

"Generally speaking that depends on the cop," Boden stated, already feeling his anxiety over the situation take a swan-dive at the implications behind Kelly's question. "Did a cop, or an ex-cop, even, do this to you?"

Kelly looked at Boden, tried to gauge the man's possible reactions – he saw uncertainty there, anger, even a little confusion, but the over-riding emotion seemed to be concern and on Kelly's behalf.

"Yeah," he nodded. "But I mean…he's right – I'm some angry kid with a crazy mom and a history of troubled behaviour – no one is going to believe me, especially over a cop," he said hopelessly.

"I believe you," Boden replied immediately and with such certainty that Kelly felt his eyes tear up a little at the blind faith, unused to anyone but his small group of friends at school believing him and believing in him. "I take it this happened at a group home or something? Wherever Child Services put you?"

Kelly agreed with a single nod, avoiding Boden's gaze while he tried to rein his emotions back in.

"Is there anyone at the house who can corroborate your story? Anyone else who suffered the same fate?"

"The same fate…" Kelly repeated slowly, shock hitting him hard in his already tumultuous stomach. "Oh my God," he whispered quietly to himself in disbelief. "I didn't even think…I just got the hell out of there as fast as I could and I didn't even stop and think…"

"Think about what?" the Squad Lieutenant asked. "Kelly?" he prodded after receiving no answer from the distressed young man.

"I left him there," Kelly replied quietly, lifting his head and catching Boden's eyes with a look so haunted that the older man had to divert his gaze for a moment.

"I'm going to call the police," he stated. "You're going to tell them exactly what happened and we will sort this mess out, Kelly. I promise!"

"No!" Kelly said desperately, standing and making for the door. "You can't! They won't believe me, they'll believe him! They'll send me right back to him and I can't..."

"Kelly!" Wallace shouted, grabbing the boy by his shoulders and sharply turned him around in an effort to stop Kelly from escaping and allow him the chance to look the kid in the eyes in an effort to try to calm him. When Boden heard the agonised groan, caught sight of the wince of pain and the way all of the blood drained from Kelly's already pale face, alarm bells started ringing. When Kelly swayed on the spot and his knees gave way, full blown panic set in.

"Yorke!" he shouted out for Fifty-One's PIC as he settled Kelly back onto the bed. "Yorke, get your ass in here now!"

An elfin red-headed young woman came rushing towards the Squad Lieutenant's office, wondering what the hell was going on. More people entered the dorm room, some out of curiosity while others, who knew who else was in Boden's office, were looking on anxiously. The PIC took one look at the barely conscious boy and ordered one of the firemen to go and grab her bag from the ambulance, her timid appearance dissolving behind her pronounced professionalism.

"What's going on here, Boden?" she asked as she reached for a pulse point, finding it too fast and not nearly strong enough for a healthy sixteen year old kid.

"I don't know," Wallace shook his head. Kelly had clearly been emotional and the bruises were proof enough that he was anything but 'fine', however, the boy had gone from frantic but lucid to ashen and barely responsive. "He got hurt, but I don't know the full details. I was getting them when he…"

"When he what, Boden?" Yorke said as she measured Kelly's pupil dilations.

"Something he thought about, something he remembered…I don't know, but something spooked him and he started to panic, and Kelly Severide does not panic, not in all the time I've known him," Wallace stated firmly. "I grabbed him, tried to stop him…I think, maybe…maybe I hurt him?" he half asked, half stated.

"So he was obviously beaten," Yorke said as she felt to back of Kelly's head, feeling for any injuries there to explain his lack of responsiveness. "There's a small knot on the back of the head," she reported. "It doesn't feel like much but you never can tell with head injuries."

"Jesus!" Boden exclaimed as Yorke lifted the teen's tattered looking hoody unveiling a veritable palette of colours swathed across his torso.

"Shit!" Yorke hissed quietly as she took in the damage, gently running her hands across the torso feeling for damage.

"Yorke?" Boden asked, anxiety ratcheting at the tone in her voice.

"It's rigid here," Yorke said, indicating the right side, just below the rib cage. "I think there may be some damage to the liver. Wallace," she said softly but firmly. "We need to get him to a hospital asap."

"I'll carry him to your rig," Boden gently scooped up the now unconscious boy and hurried through the firehouse towards the bay. It would probably have been better to get him on a gurney, but if Kelly had been moving about all day chances were that the damage was already done and time was the primary factor now. "Cover for me with the Chief?" he asked one of his Squad members.

"You got it, LT," the fireman agreed, looking worriedly at the boy in his Lieutenant's arms. "Look after the kid and let us know what's going on."

Stein, the other medic on shift, climbed into the driver's seat while Boden settled Kelly on the gurney and Yorke set about charting her patient's vitals, ready to hand off to the staff at the hospital and get the young man seen to without delay.

"He's going to be ok, right?" the anxious Squad Lieutenant asked

"I wish I could give you an answer, Boden, but I just don't know," Yorke answered sadly.

"Come on, Kelly," Wallace pleaded softly. "You're a fighter, so fight!"

Please let me know what you think and if you spot any mistakes - thanks!