Work Text:
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“I don't wanna fight no more,
I don't wanna hide no more,
I don't wanna cry no more,
Come back I need you to hold me (you are the reason),
Be a little closer now,
Just a little closer now,
Come a little closer,
I need you to hold me tonight.”
-“You Are The Reason” by Callum Scott
***
BD: What’s the dress code for this party? Casual? I can just borrow one of Matt’s many monochromatic sweaters, right?
SB: You’re messing with me and I know you’re messing with me. I am not going to respond.
BD: …was that not a response?
SB: it’s not a party, it’s a wedding.
BD: Right. A casual wedding followed by a casual reception at a bar.
GD: Your first instinct was the right one, Sylvie. Ignore him.
Matt chuckles, reading the messages as they come in. Sylvie sent the link to the wedding website to the family chat earlier. They should have seen Ben’s teasing coming. He checks the time, noticing the early afternoon hour and types out his own reply.
MC: Aren’t you supposed to be in class, Ben?
BD: …well, that explains the old guy trying to talk to me about Beowulf. I’ll let you discuss the dress code amongst yourselves. You can get back to me later with a decision.
SB: No need to discuss. You’ll be wearing a suit.
BD: Take your time. No rush. Just think about it.
SB: …
SB: I took my time. Thought about it. And you’re wearing a suit.
GD: You’re really not gonna win this one, man. You’re gonna have to suck it up and wear the jacket and tie.
Conveniently, Ben gave no further response.
MC: Don’t worry. We’ll make sure he packs something appropriate.
SB: My hero. Or heroes? Assuming Griffin is in on this too.
GD: I got your back, Sylvie. No worries.
Matt swipes down and taps his private text chain with Sylvie.
MC: How’s shift?
The dots at the bottom undulate for a few seconds before they stop completely. He wonders if the bells at 51 went off, but then a picture of them from Severide’s wedding fills his screen along with her name, the green answer button pulsing periodically.
He taps and then presses the phone to his ear. “Hey, babe.”
“Hey,” she greets, sounding tired but cheerful. “Shift is good. So far anyway. A lot better than last shift when I had to leave Julia with Capp and Tony.”
He snorts through a laugh. “At least Herrmann was there. Super Dad would never let you down.”
“Thank god for Cindy too. I don’t know what I would have done if she couldn’t have taken her this shift,” Sylvie replies sighing tiredly. “Hopefully, Super Mom is able to get Julia to take an extra long nap today. Considering she got very little sleep last night.”
“What?” Matt asks in surprise. “That’s odd for her.”
“I think we’ve hit a little patch of sleep regression. Cindy warned me when I went over there for dinner last week. Said it could start around 8 or 9 months.”
His brow furrows as he pauses in his attempt to reorganize his paperwork. “How much sleep did you get?”
“Three to four hours, give or take? I think.”
“Sylvie…”
“I know, I know. Not great the night before a shift. But I didn’t exactly have a choice.”
Every time some sort of milestone happens with Julia, good or bad, and he has to hear about it from a distance there’s a dull aching pain in the pit of his stomach. He hates that he can’t be there to help Sylvie with any of the day to day parenting. When it comes to being an equal partner, he knows he’s lacking.
“Matt,” she scolds. “You’ve gone quiet. What’s going on?”
He huffs and runs a hand through his hair, leaving it on the back of his head as he forces himself to say what he’s feeling out loud. Telling each other when the distance eats at them was part of the deal when they got engaged. They fell apart the first time around because they both kept their feelings to themselves. To make this work, even temporarily, they couldn’t do that any more.
“I should be there.”
“Or,” she disagrees. “Julia and I should be where you are. And we will be. In a few more weeks.”
“A few more weeks of you dealing with sleepless nights all by yourself? With no one to trade off with so you can get more than a couple of hours of sleep? I understand we’re hurrying this along as much as we can but not being able to help you or be there for Julia is driving me crazy. Aside from a weekend or two a month, you’ve been there and I’ve been here for nearly eight months now. That’s too long for you to be handling all of this alone.”
“But I’m not, Matt.”
“No, I know. You have 51 and thank god for them but—“
“I don’t mean 51,” she replies, cutting him off. “Do you remember when you first left for Portland?”
“Of course,” he says, doing his best to get a handle on his frustration. He’s angry at himself, not Sylvie and he doesn’t want her to misunderstand.
“You told me then that half the reason you knew you could be there for Griffin and Ben was because you had my support. Remember? Whether that was with me next to you in Chicago or halfway across the country.”
He remembers every second of that last night at Molly’s, knowing he wouldn’t be able to be back for a while he’d committed every detail to memory. “That’s still true.”
“And it’s true for me too. I know I can handle anything that comes my or Julia’s way because I’ll always have you on my side, even thousands of miles away. Besides, we have a very real non-hypothetical end date now. The separation isn’t forever, Matt. It’s just for now.”
Her words ease the ache but they also pluck at another loose thread. “And the only way that’s possible is because you’re changing your entire life to fit into mine.”
“So?”
He’s confused by her expectant tone. “So what?”
“That’s a choice I made. For myself. For my family. And, yes, for you. But I chose it. You didn’t choose it for me.”
“You shouldn’t have had to make the choice.”
He needs to marry her almost more than he needs air to breathe but every now and then the knowledge of everything she’s giving up to be with him feels like too much. He worries she’ll wake up one day and resent him. Dealing with resentment from Sylvie of all people would break his heart deeper and more permanently than any pain he had suffered throughout his life thus far.
She sighs. The sound strikes him as sad, and he’s afraid to find out why. But she doesn’t give him much time to change the subject. She takes a single thoughtful beat before addressing his concerns.
“I know neither of us are used to people making us a priority. Believe me I do. But I don’t see this move as me giving up anything. I’m only gaining,” she explains. Her voice softens and her words catch in her throat.
The emotions he hears transfer over to his own immediately. She’s right. They’ve let go and moved on numerous times in the past. The only people they haven’t been able to let go of, no matter how hard they tried, is each other.
“Matt, I’m choosing you. I want to be with you, no matter where that is. And more than just choosing you, I’m choosing Ben and Griffin too. And I’m choosing the three of you for Julia. I don’t have to choose those things. I want to make those choices. The life I’m building with you is the only life that I want. Please tell me you know that. I don’t want you to think I’m ever going to regret it because I won’t. I’m going in with clear eyes and a full heart. There isn’t going to be any sort of lingering resentment. Ever.”
The coil of anxiety that was compressing in his chest unfurls slowly, the tension releasing by degrees as he soaks in Sylvie’s words. “You truly are amazing.”
He can’t see her but based on her bashful chuckle he can imagine the self deprecating grin and modest shrug she would give him. “I just love you is all and I’m tired of pretending anything’s been the same since you moved. Do you wanna hear something sort of cheesy and weird?”
The angst he was feeling a few minutes ago completely melts away at her hesitant question. Does she really doubt that he wants to know every thought that crosses her mind? He’s interested in all of her, all the time. “Always.”
“At some point after we first got together, without me even realizing it, you became my home - not Chicago. It took me a long time to see it considering how much this city has done for me over the last ten years, but once I did there was no going back. No matter how hard I tried to fight it.”
“That’s not cheesy and it’s definitely not weird,” he replies, a wide smile overtaking his previously dour expression. There’s a different sort of sensation in his chest this time — a fluttery swirl of unadulterated happiness. Before proposing to her, it had been too long since he thought contentment was within reach and now it’s only a couple of weeks away. “But it is stubborn,” he teases. “I’ve been ready and waiting for you to help me make this house a home from the very beginning.”
She laughs and the sound is music to his ears, especially in light of the weight he had at the start of this phone call. “I know, I know. But then you’ve always been one step ahead of me through all of this. You focused on what we could be and I got caught up in where we were. Thank god you saw the forest and not just the trees. I don’t know where we’d be if you didn’t.”
“We would have figured it out,” he assures her. “Somehow, some way. I know it. Just like I know, no matter how many times he tries to get out of it, Ben will be wearing a suit at the wedding.”
“What a lifesaver you are, Matt Casey,” Sylvie replies with an audible grin hiding under her words. “An actual miracle worker.”
A miracle would be finding a way out of work so he could fly to Chicago and help her with Julia tonight. She needs her sleep. But sadly, he can’t do that. Not when he’s taking two days off for the wedding and then another week after that to help Sylvie get settled in Portland. He does have an idea though.
“You should call Kidd and ask for help with Julia tonight,” he encourages. “You could switch off with her and maybe get more than a couple hours sleep.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. I’m the one who signed up to be a parent. Besides, I’m sure she has enough on her plate.”
Stella Kidd loves Julia Brett. Matt knows that for a fact. She sent him more pictures of Julia at 51 than even Sylvie did. “It can’t hurt to ask. Besides, 51 offered you their unconditional support. You’re not being a burden if you take them up on it once and a while. You never know, Kidd might want more cuddle time than normal considering you and Julia are leaving soon.”
“She did mention wanting to come over for an Aunty Stella playdate the other day.”
“You see? Perfect,” Matt says, breathing a sigh of relief. If he can’t be there then he’s glad their friends can be.
“I’ll talk to her about it when 81 gets back from their call.”
“Good.”
“Get ready, though, because if she doesn’t get past this soon you’ll be the one losing sleep with me instead of Stella.”
Bring it on. He’s had solo parenting challenges since becoming the boys’ guardian and, while he’s proud of them and how they’ve worked hard at being a functional unit, he’s ready for the brand new challenge of co-parenting a new little being just coming into their personality. He’s longed for a true partner his whole life, someone to face the ups and downs and life changes with, and now he finally has one. The best partner — one who’s truly generous and selfless with a heart that holds unlimited capacity for love. He would rather spend an indeterminate amount of sleepless nights with her than even a million fitful sleeps without her.
“I can’t wait,” he replies honestly. “As long as we’re going through it together.”
“Together is all I want, Matt. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
It’s all he’s ever wanted too. She has no idea how much. “Then together is what we’ll be,” he promises before repeating his answer to her earlier question. “Always.”
Despite all the curveballs thrown their way throughout the years, ending up with her is truly that simple. They’re choosing to be together and they’ll keep choosing it, every day for the rest of their lives.