Sleeping with the Enemy

Kelly had just left his apartment and was getting in his car when his phone rang. It was Casey.

"Hey, I'm on the way over to get you," he said for an answer.

"Actually that's why I'm calling," Casey's voice was hesitant. "I can't make it tonight, something's come up. Sorry, Kelly."

Severide would be lying if he said he wasn't disappointed, the two of them were going to go out to a club in Canaryville to try and pick up women, they'd been planning on it all week. Casey genuinely sounded down about this revelation.

Kelly didn't let on and said dismissively, "It's okay, we'll go another night. What's up?"

"My sister had to go out of town and my niece is home sick, so I'm watching her until Christie gets back."

"Sorry to hear that, I hope it's nothing serious."

"Just the flu, but she's definitely miserable," Casey answered.

"That sucks...I hope she feels better soon."

"Yeah," Casey replied hesitantly.

"Well, I'll see you next shift," Kelly said.

"Right...well, bye, Kelly."

"Bye."

Kelly disconnected the call and sat in the driver's seat for a minute considering his options. He could go on to the club by himself, then they could both go again another time. But, for some reason he wasn't really in the mood anymore. He could go to Molly's and mingle with the others, but he wasn't in the mood for that either, but he also didn't feel like staying home all night. Finally he decided he'd go to one of the other bars he used to frequent before Molly's got off the ground.

The place he picked was a 10 minute longer drive than to Molly's, but traffic was backed up so it took him half an hour longer to get there than usual. Finding a place to park was almost impossible, he'd never admit it in front of Herrmann and Otis, but the places he used to go to could generate two to three times the foot traffic that Molly's did on its best night. He went to Molly's to support his friends and he liked the company, but nights he was actually trying to meet someone, he generally took his business elsewhere where there was a lesser chance of one of the bartenders also trying to hook up with one of the women he bumped into.

He finally found a parking spot at the end of the block and walked back towards the bar, the lights were bright and even through the closed doors the music could be heard loud and clear. The door swung open and a few people who were already nearing their limit stumbled out laughing and grabbing onto one another as they headed for their cars. Kelly glanced back, thinking he recognized one of them, but they were gone before he could make that determination. He turned back towards the door and just grabbed the handle to go in, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

Through the crowd of people who were drinking and dancing, Kelly was able to see the patrons seated at the bar more towards the back of the room. Two men were perched on the bar stools, each half turned facing each other as they drank a couple of beers and talked. Matt Casey was one of those men. As shocking as this was, and Severide's brain was already turning to mush trying to make any sense of this, what really stunned him was who the other man was Casey was talking to.

It was Sergeant Hank Voight.

Kelly felt like his mind had just exploded as he blankly stared through the glass door at his best friend, talking to the cop that tried to have him killed years ago. That was in the past and since then a working relationship between 51 and Intelligence had been established though to nobody's liking, but it had been months since they'd had to help Voight with a case for anything. There sure as hell wasn't anything going on currently that warranted the two sides joining forces again, and besides, this didn't look like any 'business' meeting between them. He could only see Casey's profile, but the man actually seemed to be enjoying the company of the cop as they had a couple of drinks. The world and everything about it that made any kind of sense just fell away as Kelly stood there watching them.

Severide didn't have any idea how long he stayed that way, it seemed to be forever, but finally the only thing prompting him to move was the fact a couple were leaving the bar and just about opened the door on his face. He took a step back and after they had headed to the parking lot, he looked in the door again, and was just in shock at Casey's demeanor. He seemed to be having a good time, he couldn't make out anything they were saying but he could see the crinkled lines around Casey's eye as he seemed to be laughing at something as he and Voight talked.

At any other time Severide would march into the bar and demand to know what the hell was going on, but right now his brain couldn't function properly to save his life. Not only was he currently beyond any words, his brain couldn't even control his body's actions enough to actually do anything. When he finally tried taking a step, it was backwards.

He wasn't even sure how he got back home to his apartment that night. He spent the night and the next day going over in his head Casey's phone call, and the contrast to that story and what he'd actually witnessed at the bar. Try as he might, Severide couldn't come up with a single logical explanation for it. And he knew he should just confront Casey about it and get to the bottom of things, but that was one conversation he had no idea how the hell to even bring it up. He decided to wait until they were on next shift and talk to Casey about it before he mentioned it to anyone else.

Casey was on at next shift, but his entire demeanor had changed from the last time Kelly saw him, or for that matter any time Kelly had ever seen him. He was shifty and wouldn't hold still for very long and wouldn't make eye contact with anybody and didn't say much to anyone in particular. Everybody else at 51 seemed oblivious to all of this, Severide was the only one who'd noticed, but he had no idea what it could be related to or how to bring it up, and the calls started coming in early so he didn't have long to dwell on it.

On the job Casey was just as efficient as ever, though every so often Severide did notice a distant look in his eyes, though they, like the rest of his body, seemed to be moving about as much as possible without drawing obvious attention to himself.

After the third call, everybody came back in dire need of a shower and a change of clothes, Casey had been the second to last one in the locker room. Kelly had been heading in just as Casey was stepping out of the shower, and in that split second the two faced each other and Kelly got one large clue as to Casey's unusual behavior. The blackish purple bruise he sported on the left side of his face trailed far above and below the area surrounding his eye, and the color was already changing, meaning it wasn't something that had just happened, but very likely was at least a couple of days old. Which meant that Casey had tried to cover it up with makeup so nobody else would notice. Now Kelly knew why he'd dragged his feet on getting cleaned up. He also noticed, almost as an afterthought, several other bruises on Casey's chest and shoulders and back. Those had been covered by his shirt, and the patterns were vague enough they probably could've passed for job-related, but not the one taking up one whole side of his face.

The first thing that occurred to him to say was, "Whoa, what happened to you?"

"It's nothing," Casey said defensively as he subconsciously raised a hand to his face to try and shield the worst of it from Severide's view.

"Your niece do that?" Severide asked, wondering if Casey even remembered the lie he'd told Severide 2 nights ago.

"Oh...no, it's really nothing."

"Casey-"

"You're not the only hothead around here who gets into bar fights, Severide," Casey snapped at him. After that outburst he seemed to calm down a little and added, "I didn't want everyone asking questions, can we please drop it?"

"I'm pretty sure they're gonna know now," Kelly pointed out.

"No they're not," Casey walked over to his locker, opened it up and took out a tube of foundation concealer. Kelly wasn't even sure how to bring up the question how and where Casey got the idea to put makeup on his black eye, let alone for that matter how to find the right shade.

"Casey..." Kelly still couldn't get his brain to wire together the questions that had been building in his head for 2 days. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"No," Casey answered a little too quickly. "Let's just drop it, okay?"

That was actually the last thing Kelly wanted to do or planned to do, but he knew he couldn't force Casey to talk about anything he didn't want to, and he wouldn't get anywhere by trying.

"Okay," he conceded for now, "but if you are, you know you can come to me, right?"

Casey nodded grimly. "I know."

And yet somehow Kelly still knew he wouldn't. And now he was especially curious to find out what the hell was going on, but he also had no idea how to find that out.

"So how is your niece?" Kelly asked.

Casey looked back at him, a slight expression of confusion, quickly replaced with a self assured look as he answered, "She's doing fine now."

"Good...glad to hear it."

That night when things had quieted down for a while, everybody took advantage of the lack of calls coming in and hit the bunk room to get some rest until the bells went off again. Kelly stopped by Casey's quarters but he wasn't there, so he searched the rooms one by one, and didn't find Casey anywhere. Starting to run out of ideas but not wanting to get the rest of 51 involved in what was going on until he had no other alternatives, Kelly stepped outside. The night was cold and just about pitch black save for the street lamps. Over the wind blowing he was able to make out Casey's voice and followed it around the corner of the station house. He was able to make out Casey pacing around in circles as he talked on his cell phone.

"I need to see you," Casey told whoever was on the other end of the line. "No! I can't talk about it on the phone, when can I see you?" Casey was visibly and audibly getting worked up nearing a point of frenzy or panic. He was all but hyperventilating as he said to whoever he was talking to, "We go off shift in 7 hours, I'll be able to get there after that...no, no one knows. I swear I haven't told anyone anything..." Casey started to calm down as he told the other person, "Okay...okay...I'll see you then. I really appreciate this."

Kelly quietly backed away and made his way back into the station house and headed for his quarters figuring Casey wouldn't be far behind. But five minutes passed, then ten, and Casey never came, and Severide got curious so he went looking again. This time he found Casey in the common room sitting on the couch watching the TV with the volume cranked down so it didn't wake everybody up.

"Hey," Kelly quietly announced as he entered the room, acting like he was only half awake. "What're you doing up?"

"Just couldn't sleep," Casey insisted as he shook his head.

"Want some company?" Kelly asked.

"Nah, go back to sleep, I'm good," Casey said as he flipped through the channels.

"I don't mind," Kelly yawned as he sat down beside Matt. "You okay?"

"Fine," he answered tiredly and shortly.

Kelly paused, and asked, "How'd you really get that black eye?"

"I told you, I got in a bar fight."

"So why'd you hide it from everyone?"

"I didn't want Boden riding my case about my 'behavioral issues'," Casey insisted.

Kelly just nodded, and thought.

"You want to come over tomorrow after shift?"

"Can't, I have a doctor's appointment," Casey answered.

Kelly eyed him suspiciously, "For what?"

"Eye doctor," Casey pointed to the same eye that had a nice purple shiner around it that was currently hidden behind another layer of foundation, "I got something in it during that last call."

Kelly turned and looked him in the eyes. "Don't see anything."

"Well it hurts."

"Sure it's not from being punched?" Kelly inquired.

"No."

"Well I'm sure sitting up all night's not going to help it," Severide told him.

Casey was clearly agitated and replied shortly, "Go to bed, Kelly...I'll be along later."

Somehow Kelly doubted that as well, but he knew he wasn't going to get anywhere, so he reluctantly got up from the couch and headed back to his quarters.