Work Text:
What the…?
Matt and Kelly have just come back from Med where they updated Pete, the owner of the pet food factory, on their investigation. The poor man looked crushed when he realized the people responsible for putting his wife in the hospital were likely to get away scot-free.
Matt can’t blame him. He and Severide are still seething from the injustice of it all and they’ve spent the entire ride back to the station trying to come up with something, anything to help put an end to the gardening company’s illicit activities. Updating Boden is first on their list.
They’re both walking past their officers quarters, intent on heading straight to the Chief’s office when Matt spots something off out of the corner of his eye.
His blinds are down.
They shouldn’t be. He always leaves them up when he’s away from his quarters and he is absolutely certain today was no exception.
He stops dead in his tracks, takes a few steps back to his door and opens it slowly.
“What the hell happened in there?” Kelly asks, peeking over his shoulder.
Matt doesn’t answer. He can’t, too stunned by the sight of absolute mayhem splayed out in front of him.
The shelf above his desk is dangling off the wall, barely holding on by a single bolt. The binders it held splattered onto his once pristine work surface, their contents spilled across the floor. The lamp which used to hang neatly on the edge of the desk now dangles awkwardly, held up only by the power cord.
The sheets on his cot, usually tightly squared away, lay rumpled, drooping off the sides of the frame. From where he stands he can even spot a few rips.
He takes a small step inside the room but stops immediately, startled by a crunching sound under his foot. He looks down and realizes the pictures of Chicago fires that were displayed on his wall have been knocked down, their frames shattered.
Not a corner of the room has been spared. The blinds on the outside windows are bent and twisted, as if someone has tried to pry them open. His nightstand drawer has somehow been flung upside down on the ground, the bedside lamp resting right next to it, lightbulb smashed.
“Oh no!”
Matt turns around to see Gallo and Ritter running back into the bunk room, coming to a full stop at the sight of the captain.
He points to the chaos behind him. “Who did this?”
Gallo looks at Ritter with a wince. “Veronicat,” they both say at the same time. “We put her outside, she won’t cause any more trouble.”
“I don’t think there’s any more trouble she can cause,” Severide smirks. “Looks like she was pretty thorough the first time around.”
“That and well… Mouch kind of sold her,” Ritter adds.
Casey looks at him, stunned. “He did what?”
“Don’t tell Brett! We’re going to try to get Veronicat back once the garage sale is over. Please,” Gallo begs.
“Fine, I won’t. For now.”
He won’t mention it but he sure as hell won’t lie to her either if she asks about it.
“In the meantime, we’ll clean everything up, Captain.”
Casey sighs. The mess is pretty extensive and it would be easy to lean on the candidates to tidy things up for him. But it would also be taking advantage of his rank. Gallo and Ritter had nothing to do with the cat destroying his office.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle the cleanup.”
“Are you sure? We don’t mind helping,” Ritter says.
“No, it’s okay. You did enough. Go help Mouch finish up outside. The sooner you’re done, the faster you can get the cat back.”
Though after the devastation it caused to his office, Matt wonders if Sylvie’s not better off.
He watches as the two young firefighters scamper off, obviously relieved to escape this particular duty and turns to Severide. “Let’s go talk to Boden now. I’ll deal with the mess later.”
It doesn’t take too long to come up with a plan of action to deal with the gardening company. They won’t put it into motion until after shift. Boden has their back but the three lieutenants unanimously decide it’s better if their Chief has plausible deniability in case things go wrong.
When they leave Boden’s office, Severide makes a beeline for the apparatus floor. Apparently, he’s just as eager to help his friend as Gallo and Ritter were.
Matt detours through the storage room to grab a broom, a dustpan and some garbage bags before he walks back to his quarters. To his surprise, someone is already busy tidying up his office. Brett is kneeling on the floor, half of her body under his desk as she gathers all the papers that have flown under it.
“Sylvie?”
She jumps, startled, and he hears a loud bang when her head hits the underside of his desk. “Ow!”
Alarmed, he rushes to her side, dropping on his knees next to her as she sits back, her hand rubbing the back of her head. “I’m sorry, Sylvie. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He raises a hand, gently moving hers to feel the tender spot. A small bump is already growing under her silky hair. “Are you okay?” he asks.
She winces slightly. “I think my pride took the hardest hit. But I’m pretty sure we’ll both survive.” she adds with a smile.
He can’t help but grin back at her. It took them a while to be comfortable around each other again. He missed this. Her . After months of awkwardness and tiptoeing, being able to be close to her, allowing himself even the simplest touch, is like breathing fresh air after being buried alive.
She stands up, effectively breaking the spell he’s under and he follows her. She looks around his office and turns back to him. “On a scale of one to ten, how mad are you?”
“Mad? I’m not mad, Sylvie.”
“I should have kept Veronicat in her carrier. She’s usually calmer at home. I didn’t think…”
He gently grabs her elbow, effectively stopping her. “I never expected you to keep the poor animal locked up.”
“I’m sure you didn’t expect a catnado destroying your office either.”
He lets out a full-on belly laugh. “Catnado?”
“What? Sharknados are a thing! I think Veronicat easily tops the amount of damage.”
“Fair point. I can see where you’re coming from.”
“I’m really sorry, Matt. I’ll pay for all the repairs.”
“It’s not necessary. Anything that needs to be replaced, I’m sure I can find it in the Blue Office.”
“Well, at least I can help you clean up.”
“On one condition. You let me get you some ice for your head. Don’t try to protest, a certain paramedic would yell at me if I didn’t care properly for a head injury.”
“Fine,” she says, playfully pouting.
Matt is gone less than five minutes, just long enough to walk to the common room, retrieve an ice pack from the freezer and head back to his quarters.
But somehow, in this minuscule time frame, the mood has drastically changed. He finds Sylvie crouching by his bunk, slotting the drawer back in his bedside table. As soon as she hears him, she hurriedly slams it shut and bolts to her feet. She’s grown pale and he swears he can see mist clouding her eyes.
“Everything okay?” he asks warily.
“Yes. I just… I forgot… I still have to do inventory with Violet. She must be waiting for me.”
She brushes past him and dashes out of his office before he can respond, carefully avoiding his confused gaze. Matt stands motionless, ice pack still in his hand. He stays glued to his spot, staring at her until she disappears.
What in the world just happened?
He takes a few steps to where she was when he came in and pulls open the drawer. At the bottom of it lies a broken picture frame, upside down. He doesn’t need to turn it over to know what it represents.
Matt sits down on the bed and picks it up, half expecting a pang of hurt when he turns it over. But when he rediscovers the face of Gabby Dawson smiling back at him, he’s not really surprised when it doesn’t come.
The shot used to be displayed prominently next to his bed. He remembers throwing it inside the drawer after Gabby left permanently and burying it under some books. He meant to retrieve it later, when the wound wasn’t quite as raw, and dispose of it then. Instead, he’d completely forgotten about it.
Of course Sylvie had to be the one to find it. She already considers Gabby an insurmountable obstacle between them, the main reason why she called things off between them.
Do you think she’s right?
Kelly’s words at Molly’s last night ring back in his ears. Despite what Sylvie seems to be thinking, his feelings towards Dawson are very much resolved. Like the photograph, she’s disappeared from his mind entirely, even if he still holds on to the memory of their time together. They loved each other for a long time, were married for over a year. She and Louie were the closest he ever got to having a family of his own, until the boy was ripped away from them.
But this is all it is now. Memories. Some good, some bad. He doesn’t want to forget them but he has moved on. Healed . He’s grown and, he hopes, learned from the past.
And now he’s ready for the future.