When Kelly woke up again he found them both in the middle of the bed, Casey's head resting on his chest, the blonde man slowly breathing as he slept. Kelly craned his neck to see the clock on the nightstand and saw it was 11:30 in the morning. Matt looked so peaceful when he was asleep, Kelly hated to wake him up and bring him back to the reality of what was happening. But he knew they both had to face it sooner or later.

"Matt...hey Matt."

A sound caught in Casey's throat as his eyes opened, it took a couple seconds for him to finally pick his head up off Kelly's chest and look around the room.

"How're you doing, buddy?"

Casey slowly sat up, absently ran a couple fingers over his mouth and took in their surroundings.

"Uh...okay, I think," he said.

"You want to get lunch?" Kelly asked.

He faintly nodded, "Yeah, I guess so."

They both got up, stretched, heard a few things creak and pop, and headed out to the kitchen. On the way, Kelly stopped Matt and looked him in the eyes and told him, "I don't hate you, you know that, right?"

Casey nodded.

"I could never hate you, especially not for this," Kelly said.

Matt looked at him and blearily nodded again, "I know..."

"I'm...sorry that I ran out of the hospital that night."

"It's okay," Casey told him, and said after a brief pause, "If...the roles were reversed...I'm not sure what I would've done either. You came back, that's all that matters."

He could tell by the look on Kelly's face that that wasn't all. "What is it?"

"The only reason..." Kelly broke off the words, and took a step away from Casey as he tried to figure out how to explain it, "When I ran out...Otis and Cruz chased me out to the parking lot and tackled me."

Casey's eyes widened and the look on his face was almost amused as he asked, "What?"

"Literally, they knocked me to the ground...Cruz actually told me to get my ass back in there and see you."

Casey opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again in something akin to a double take, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the sudden direction the conversation had taken, "He what?"

Kelly nodded not proudly, "They wouldn't give me a choice." The look in his eyes said how small he was feeling as he confessed, "If they hadn't...I really don't know what I would've done. I just felt like...I had to get out of there...I know it doesn't make sense."

Casey weakly nodded in response, "We can't panic on the job or we die and so does anyone we're trying to save...I guess we're allowed to panic once in a while in our own lives...I know I did when you left."

Internally, Kelly grimaced at those words.

The sound Casey was making drew him out of those thoughts. He looked at his best friend and was puzzled that Casey actually seemed to be laughing. He composed himself and told Severide, "I can't believe they did that."

A small smile finally found its way to Kelly's face as he told Matt, "Got some great guys working under you. They'd do anything for you."

"Apparently, tackle the Squad lieutenant in the parking lot," Casey laughed again, and laughed even louder as he added, "Cruz ordering you around..." he laughed so hard it sounded like he couldn't even breathe, "I love it."

In spite of how lowly Kelly was feeling at the moment remembering his own behavior that night, he found himself smiling at Casey's reaction.

After dinner that night they left the apartment and went for a walk, Casey wanted to get some air and Kelly was relieved he was up for leaving the apartment. They'd started out side by side keeping in even time with each other's pace, but after a while it finally occurred to Kelly that he was holding Matt's hand, not that Casey had said anything, he wasn't even sure if the blonde man had noticed. He couldn't remember doing it, and he especially couldn't remember when, but if Casey didn't say anything about it, he decided there wasn't any reason to let go.

The sounds of the city never really died down, once in a while they just seemed to dim out, but they were never completely gone, as they turned a corner he could hear music playing from somewhere, distant voices of people talking. As the streetlights came on, he could make out several people out and about that they passed by.

Suddenly Kelly was hit with a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach, he looked at the people as they walked by, he looked at their faces, they all seemed to looking at him, at Casey. A voice in his head started hammering the question, did they know what happened to Matt? Did he know? Did she know? Were they looking at him, judging him, were they able to tell just by looking at him what had happened to him? Very suddenly Kelly felt himself being swallowed up by an intense urge to get Casey out of there, and get him back home where he knew Matt would be safe, and out of the crosshairs of prying eyes.

"Kelly."

The sound of his name drew him out of his thoughts and he turned and looked at Casey, who said with a slightly pained expression on his face, "You're hurting my hand."

Kelly looked down and saw he'd squeezed Casey's hand until it was turning purple, and he quickly let go. "Sorry."

Even though it had been agreed that Casey would stay with Kelly in his room at night for the time being, when the time actually came that they were getting ready for bed, Kelly couldn't help noticing the way Matt just seemed to hover in the room. He stood at an angle beside the foot of the bed with his arms wrapped tight around himself and just looked at it as if he was about to jump off a dock into a body of water where he couldn't see anything below the surface.

"Matt," he said, drawing Casey out of whatever thoughts were occupying his mind, he saw the blonde man jolt at the sound before he turned to look at Severide. Kelly honestly didn't know what to say, he couldn't begin to imagine what was going through Casey's mind, and he didn't want to guess, he especially didn't want to ask. He just shrugged and told his friend, "It's alright, just get in."

Casey seemed to respond to that, he went around to the other side of the bed, pulled the covers down and crawled in.

Kelly really hadn't thought this would be awkward, now he wondered what he was thinking when he had that idea. Not saying anything else, he got in on his side and pulled the covers up. He looked at Casey and asked him, "You okay?" Something was suddenly screaming in his mind that he'd said the wrong thing and quickly amended that question, "You're comfortable?"

Casey looked at him and nodded, "It's fine."

Kelly didn't think there was anything to say after that. "Okay, good." He reached over to turn out the light, "Goodnight."

He heard the sheets rustle as Casey settled in, "Goodnight."

The scream woke him up.

It was short lived, maybe not even a full second, but it was enough to wake Severide up. He blindly fumbled for the lamp and turned it on, then turned over and saw Casey jerk up in the bed, sitting rigid as a statue.

It was the third night they'd been sleeping together in Kelly's room. The first two had passed uneventfully, once they got past the initial newness of the situation, any feelings of awkwardness had quickly passed, but Kelly had a feeling the bottom was going to fall out somewhere, and now it looked like it had.

"You alright, Matt?"

A stupid question, but Kelly couldn't think of anything else to say.

Casey just looked straight ahead, and it took a couple beats for him to answer, but he finally said, "Fine...sorry."

"Nightmare?" Kelly probed.

Matt firmly clamped his teeth together and just nodded.

Kelly tried to think. "You want to talk about it?"

Casey shook his head.

"Okay, then we don't have to," Kelly said, not sure where to go from there.

Neither said anything for a minute, and Casey didn't move from his current position for about a minute. Finally Kelly thought to ask, "You want to keep the light on?"

Casey shook his head and finally slid back down against the pillows and pulled the blanket up again.

Kelly reached over to turn off the light, but before he did he asked Matt, "Did this happen before...when I stayed with you?"

Casey reluctantly answered, "A few times...not like this...not enough to wake me up...I thought..."

Kelly knew what he thought, he thought Severide could somehow keep it all away. It didn't even matter that Kelly had no idea how that was supposed to work, the fact that he couldn't and the fact that this was happening now made him feel like he'd failed Casey.

Everything seemed to be fine until Voight showed up, that's what blew everything to hell. Before he showed up on the doorstep, Casey was fine, he was normal, he was social, he was looking forward to going back to 51...

But Kelly sighed as the truth washed over him that that had been a farce. It wasn't Voight's fault, all he did was bring up something they'd both thought could stay buried, and it couldn't. For all they knew, any one of a hundred things could've happened on a job that would trigger a flashback for Casey and then he'd be in exactly the same position he was in right now, if not one that was far worse. Kelly couldn't even think about that, and he honestly had no idea how this was going to work, how either or both of them were supposed to go on shift in a week.

With a tired sigh, Kelly hoped that somehow this situation would clear up soon, he was blindly stumbling along trying to help Casey and he didn't know if he was making things better, or worse, or if he was having no impact on the situation at all. He reached over and shut off the light, and the only sound was the covers rustling as the two firemen got settled down again for the night and tried to go back to sleep.

In the dark he couldn't see much, but he could definitely feel when Casey rolled over towards his side of the bed and laid so close beside him that Casey was practically laying on the right side of his body. Kelly said nothing, he just lay there and waited, and in a few moments he could hear Matt's light, steady breathing, and knew he was asleep, and hoped he stayed that way.

When Kelly woke up the next morning Casey was still right beside him, clutching the covers in his hands and looking like he wasn't aware of anything.

Casey stood in the bathroom with his arms folded against his stomach and his hands clutching his elbows as he stood rigid and stared at the shower. He knew he'd been standing exactly that way for 20 minutes, only occasionally rocking on the balls of his feet as he thought about getting into it. That's what he'd come in there for, it's what he needed to do, he needed to get cleaned up...but he found he just couldn't take those two steps to actually reach the shower. He knew Severide would be wondering what he was doing, but even that couldn't convince him to move his feet past the spot on the tiled floor where they'd planted themselves.

Why? Why was this so hard for him? It was something he'd done virtually every day of his life, on shift sometimes 10 times a day depending on the calls they came back from. There wasn't anything to it, now it might as well have been climbing the Matterhorn.

He couldn't take a step forward, but he could inch his way back a step, then another, then another. He turned and headed to the door and called out, "Kelly?" as he turned the knob and pulled the door open.

Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised, Kelly was already outside the door waiting.

"You okay?" he asked.

Casey couldn't answer, he took a step back and turned his head towards the shower. Kelly quickly caught on to what Casey couldn't bring himself to say.

"Okay," Kelly stepped into the bathroom, closed the door behind him and locked it, "I'm here. Do what you have to do."

Casey tensely moved over to the shower again, where he expected to freeze again he found himself taking another step, and then he was close enough to reach past the curtain and turn on the taps.

"I'm not looking," Kelly said as he turned around to face the door so Casey could get undressed.

He didn't know how to many any sense out of it. At no other time during the day, in any given situation, did Casey fall victim to the fear that his attackers might come back, none that he knew about anyway. But this was one obstacle that Casey still hadn't been able to clear. Kelly knew he would, in time, he had to, he was made of stronger stuff than this, Kelly just didn't know how long it was going to take, but he knew however long it was, he'd be right there to help Casey through it in whatever way he could.

He heard the water shut off and heard Casey call out through the curtain, "I'm done."

Kelly turned and glanced at the clock and saw 15 minutes had passed and he hadn't even realized it, nor had he realized how steamed up the room had gotten in that short span of time. He left the bathroom so Casey could have some privacy while he dried off and got dressed.