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“All right, there he is.” Stella's cheerful voice floats through the rolled-down window of her Jeep as it rolls to a stop outside the front doors of Chicago Med. “Your getaway car has arrived.”
Kelly squints and lifts his hand in a wave. “Right on time,” he calls back, reaching down to pat his brother on his uninjured shoulder. “Ready to blow this joint?”
He watches the back of Damon’s head as it dips down, a long exhale leaving his mouth. “Yeah.”
Kelly chuckles. “I'll bet.”
“Can’t wait to get some real food—hospital meals are as bad as they say.”
“You got that right.” Kelly unlocks the brakes on Damon's wheelchair and rolls it forward toward the parked car. Leaning in and lowering his voice, he says, “Hate to tell you this, but Stella's cooking isn't much better.”
He's teasing, of course—Stella is probably a better chef than he is, but his brother lets out a snort, and Kelly counts that as a win.
Sitting up in and dressed in “real” clothes—a pair of sweatpants and a green zip-up jacket meant to make it easier to put on over the sling—Damon looks much more alert than he had only a few short days ago. Though that isn't saying much.
Kelly shudders to recall how weak and raspy his brother's voice had been when he'd first come out of surgery. It was a startling contrast to see the normally full of life firefighter lying pale and motionless in that bed, every ounce of Severide confidence and that signature playful smirk nowhere to be found. No, all Kelly could see in that moment was a scared kid, in pain and uncertain of what the future held.
Despite the bright rays of sun beaming down on them, there's a biting chill to the mid-April air that reminds them spring isn't quite ready to make its appearance just yet. A gust of wind blows across the parking lot and right through their layers.
Kelly pauses at the side of the Jeep as Stella climbs out, stepping around to open the back door for them.
She offers Damon a smile. “Hey. How you feeling?”
“I'm okay.” The response is accompanied by the barest hint of a smile, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
Kelly has a feeling he knows why.
Although the doctors had cleared Damon, it was not without a list of medications and multitude of serious warnings to take it easy for the next couple of weeks. The discharge papers had come with a folder full of instructions, a warning list of “if this happens, call these five numbers immediately,” and firm admonishments to avoid anything more strenuous than teeth brushing for the next few days at least.
The possibility of permanent lung damage overshadows all of it, the uncertainty hanging in the air like a dark cloud. It's too soon to tell just how severe the breakdown is due to the current inflammation and healing injuries. The kid is already scheduled to go in for a follow-up appointment soon—complete with more scans and tests—to determine a more concrete verdict.
Kelly knows how hard Damon is taking all of it. He understands—news like that is every firefighter’s worst nightmare. And Damon is so young; barely more than a kid. The possibility of losing the career he's just started must be a heavy weight on his shoulders.
While Kelly doesn't know what the future holds for his brother, he meant what he’d said the other day. We'll figure it out. Together.
He squeezes the younger man's shoulder once more before carefully helping him stand, bearing the brunt of his brother's weight as he shifts forward toward the open door. “Take your time.”
“I'm good,” Damon mutters, though it's obvious by the way he sways that he's not as steady on his feet as he claims. His fingers tighten around Kelly's forearm, allowing himself to be carefully guided into the backseat.
“All set?” Kelly asks once he's gotten the kid settled, bracing one hand against the top of the car's door frame. He glances briefly over his shoulder as Stella grabs the wheelchair to return back inside.
Damon nods.
The silence lingers, no one speaking as they climb into the car and pull out of the hospital parking lot. Kelly could do with never seeing the inside of the Chicago Med ER again. After spending the last few days sleeping practically folded in half on the sorry excuse for a couch in the hospital room, his aging back is begging for the comfort of his own bed.
It isn't until they're nearly halfway home that Damon pipes up, his voice still a bit tired but genuine. “Thanks again,” he ventures, “for letting me crash with you guys. And for staying at the hospital and everything.”
“Of course.” Stella answers first with a firm nod, glancing in the rearview mirror. “That's what family does.”
Damon just hums.
There's nothing specifically damning about the soft sound, but Kelly recognizes a faint flicker of something in it anyway, and he knows what his brother must be thinking. When you go so long without anybody to lean on, it's hard to figure out how to handle and accept that kind of support when it does appear. Especially when your past experience with “family” lends no credit to Stella's easy statement. That's what family does.
Kelly had to learn what that meant, what real family was and what they did for their own. So did Stella.
Damon will learn too, eventually. Firehouse 51 will make sure of it.
The rest of the drive home is quiet, with Damon dozing off to the smooth movement of the Jeep.
“He must be exhausted,” Stella murmurs knowingly, cruising into a left turn as she pulls into the driveway.
Kelly grunts his agreement. After spending the week under fluorescent lights, surrounded by beeping monitors and a slew of nurses who were constantly poking and prodding, it's no wonder why. “He's had a long few days.”
Although the car rolls to a gentle stop, Damon startles awake with a little jolt, blinking rapidly.
“Hey,” Kelly says, turning slightly in his seat to eye his brother over his shoulder. “You're good—we're home.” He nods toward the building.
Recognition dawns in the younger man's eyes, and he offers another one of those barely-there smiles around a stifled yawn.
Kelly hops out of the passenger seat and rounds the car to grab the back door. He grabs the go-bag the nurses had packed that contains packets of extra gauze, an inhaler, and a boatload of papers and slings it over his shoulder before offering his hand to help Damon climb out.
Stella remains in the front seat, watching the extraction with those eagle eyes of hers. “Okay, so. Kelly's gonna get you settled upstairs, and I” —she points to herself— “am going to run to the pharmacy to pick up your prescriptions. You think of anything else you might need?”
Damon shakes his head, taking his time in easing his way out of the car. “I don't think so.”
“Oh.” Stella snaps her fingers. “Ice cream.”
“What?”
“I totally forgot to pick some up on my last grocery run. You just got out of the hospital—it’s a requirement. Comfort food. You like rocky road?”
“Uh, yeah.” His brows furrow. “How did you…?”
A knowing smile tugs at her lips. “It’s Kelly's favorite.”
“Oh.” Damon blinks, gaze bouncing from Stella to Kelly like he's not quite sure what to make of that.
“Call if you think of anything else we need,” Stella says, this time directed at Kelly. “I'll be back soon.”
“Bye,” Kelly says, thankful beyond measure for his wife and her willingness to run errands while he gets his brother settled.
Once she takes her leave, Kelly turns his attention back to Damon, who's already flagging in his arms after being upright for only a short amount of time.
“Okay, we're gonna take this nice and slow,” he says as he turns and they start toward the door. “You need a break, just say the word.”
He half-expects a brush-off, maybe even a sarcastic retort, but Damon just nods silently. His focus is clearly set on putting one foot in front of the other. Which is completely understandable; smoke inhalation, fractured radius, internal injuries—and that's just the highlights. Kelly isn't even sure how the kid is standing under his own willpower.
He's lucky to be alive. The thought churns in Kelly's gut, ugly alternatives poking at him the way they have ever since the moment they realized who that P.A.S.S. alarm belonged to.
It shouldn't have happened.
But he can't think about that right now, because Damon needs help getting upstairs, and picturing the kid unconscious under a pile of rubble really isn't doing much for Kelly's mental state at the moment.
He shakes the images from his head and adjusts his grip. “You good?” he asks, letting the solid presence of his brother under his hands ground him.
“Yeah.”
“Your ‘yeah’ could use some work.”
Damon huffs out a breathy laugh, though the sound is shallow. “Shut up.”
They manage to make it upstairs without too much difficulty, though even the short trek up to the loft seems to have taken it out of Damon. By the time they reach the bedroom, the younger man's breaths are hitching from the effort, a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead.
Kelly pushes open the door, revealing the neatly made up room. His gratefulness for his wife swells again for her efforts in getting things ready for Damon's stay. The bed is made with freshly-washed sheets, and an extra blanket is laid out at the foot of the bed. A stack of folded towels sits on top of the short dresser across from the bed, and the bag of Damon's clothes and other various items they'd picked up from his apartment the other day has been set neatly on the lone chair in the corner of the room near the window.
Damon's eyes roam the setup, gratitude—and maybe even a hint of surprise?—etched deep into his gaze. The expression suddenly shifts, like he's just remembered something important. “I—this isn't the baby's room, right?”
It takes Kelly's brain a second to catch up. When it does, he quickly shakes his head. “Nah, man, this is the extra guest room. Kid's room is across the hall, full of zoo animals and a rocking chair.” He chuckles. “Trust me, you'd know.”
Despite his initial suggestion to wait a little longer before filling the room with baby furniture, he'd given in to letting Stella buy some decor for their to-be child's room. It's still a work in progress, but they've got time.
“Oh, okay.” Damon seems placated by that response for only a moment before the tension returns to his shoulders. He frowns. “Wait, but aren't you guys supposed to hear from the adoption agency about a placement? What if they call while I'm still here? I don't want to be in the way, I'm already—”
“Damon.” Kelly almost has to choke back a laugh at the expression of distress covering his brother's features. It would be funny, were it not for the fact that he knows Damon feels like an inconvenience.
He waits until their gazes meet before he says, “We don't expect to hear anything for another couple of months at least, maybe even longer.”
Some of the panic fades. “Oh.”
“And even if an opportunity did open up? We'd make it work.” He hopes his tone is resolute enough to get his point across.
“Yeah. Okay.”
There isn't a whole lot of confidence in the words, but Kelly will take it for now. “Come on, let's get you sitting down before you fall down and I have to carry you.”
Damon rolls his eyes but allows himself to be helped over to the bed, sinking down onto the mattress with a sigh.
“We'll get you some water and your meds when Stella gets back. You can crash if you want.”
His brother looks like he wants to protest, but there's no denying the dark circles under his eyes or the way his shoulders are drooping with exhaustion. He slides over so his back is against the headboard, relaxing into the pillows as though his battered body has been waiting on it.
Kelly watches for a moment as Damon gets himself settled before he shoves a thumb in the direction of the door. “I'm gonna go throw a load of laundry in the washer. If you need anything, let me know, okay?”
“Thanks, Kelly.” There's the smallest hint of…surprise or bewilderment, almost, underneath the gratitude in Damon's tone. Like he doesn't quite understand why his brother and sister-in-law are so willing to let him stay over while he recovers from his near-death experience.
He nods in response, reaching out to give the younger man's leg a gentle squeeze. “Get some rest, D.”
He waits until Damon’s eyes drift closed, watching for a moment longer before he backs out of the room and heads for the washing machine.
***
The scent of roasted garlic and simmering tomatoes wafts through the loft, a familiar and welcome smell. It’s comforting in a way Kelly didn't realize he needed until he steps out of the bathroom and it hits his nostrils.
His hair is still slightly damp from his shower, clean t-shirt clinging to his shoulders from the leftover steam. His skin feels scrubbed raw, any lingering traces of antiseptic washed away by soap and too-hot water. Maybe part of him hoped he could rid himself of the grime of worry that's seemed to implant itself under his skin over the last few days.
But although he's physically clean, there's a heaviness that remains on his shoulders, unable to be rinsed off. The weight has only seemed to grow with each passing moment—a stone lodged in his chest.
Kelly pads over to the kitchen, socked feet nearly silent against the hardwood floor. There's light music playing on the Bluetooth speaker, and he spots Stella standing at the stove, her curls piled up on top of her head in a messy bun. Part of him relaxes. She looks like—feels like—home.
Her eyes flick up when Kelly approaches, and she lights up with a smile. “Hey.”
“Hey. How's he doing?” he asks in response, as if he hadn't just been in Damon’s room twenty minutes ago. They'd gotten his meds and some soup into him before he'd promptly conked out again, sufficiently spent after his long day.
“Still sleeping, last I checked,” Stella says. She turns her attention back to the pot on the burner. “Our dinner will be ready in about ten.”
Kelly nods wordlessly, stepping up to the kitchen island and pressing his palms into the countertop. His head dips down slightly, thoughts spinning in his head at a dizzying speed. He lets out a long breath.
There's an ache that's been steadily growing ever since they'd gotten home—since Stella had returned from the store and promptly sent him to shower with a pointed “you smell like hospital” and a kiss to the cheek. Maybe the silence is finally allowing his brain to process everything that's happened.
Everything up to today has been a blur—first there had been the investigation, hours spent getting grilled by Boden, trying to determine how the hell this could have happened, even though deep down the only thing he'd wanted was to be at Med, waiting to be the first to hear news on his brother's condition. Then the noises of the hospital, the beeping, the constant murmur of voices and the in-and-out of doctors, nurses, and visitors had kept his mind busy, distracted for the next few days. Now, there's nothing standing between him and the raw truth.
“Hey. You okay?”
Kelly doesn't realize how tight his jaw is until Stella’s soft voice floats into his ears. She's suddenly at his side, one hand rubbing up and down his arm in a soothing motion. His entire body feels like a tightly-wound coil, a touch away from exploding.
It takes a few seconds to get his mouth moving. When he does, his voice is hoarse. “He almost died, Stella.”
Her hand pauses mid-stroke, slender fingers squeezing the tense muscles in his bicep instead. The words sit in the air between them for a moment, heavy and somber.
“I know,” she says quietly.
“Two more minutes and he wouldn't have made it.”
Stella's breath hitches; she snakes her arms under Kelly's and wraps them around his middle. “You got him out, though.”
The reminder isn't as comforting as it's meant to be. Because Squad shouldn't have had to pull Damon’s limp body out of the rubble—Kelly should have kept the kid on his hip after they'd met up on the second floor, should have double-checked that everyone had made it out of that house after the evacuation order was given, should have looked for his brother sooner.
He's replayed it in his head a million times. If he could do it over again…
He rakes a shaky hand through his short hair and bites out, “He was alone. I wasn't there. I should've been there, should've—”
“Hey, no.” Stella stops him with a hand to his chest, shaking her head firmly. “You cannot blame this on yourself, Kelly. It wasn't your fault.”
He exhales, unable to properly express all the emotions simmering in his chest.
“I thought he was dead.” The admission leaves his lips in a whisper, like saying it too loud might make it reality. “When we found him up there, I thought—” He can't finish.
Standing here with his wife in his arms, alone in the quiet of their apartment, he allows the rising sob to rip out of him, the verbal acknowledgement of what could have been, what almost was overtaking him in a wave of distress. He turns to bury his face in her neck, letting her strong embrace be what keeps him together as he falls apart.
Stella's arms tighten around his midsection, one hand slipping up to caress the back of his neck. She presses a kiss to the side of his head. “Hey, I know. I know. But he is alive. And he's gonna be fine.”
He allows the words to wash over him, to knit him back together. Even now, he can still taste the smoke and sheer desperation on his lips as he shouted his brother's name in the dead of night, racing back toward the flame-engulfed house, but Stella's hold is firm and sure, pulling him back into the present. It's everything he needs right now, in this moment. The storm inside him quiets to a faint rumble.
She draws back after a few moments, thumb coming up to wipe away the lone tear on his cheek as she meets his blurred gaze with her steady one.
“I love you,” she tells him simply.
He pulls her into his arms once more and kisses her. “I love you, too.”
Something beeps at the stove, drawing them out of their reverie.
Kelly clears his throat. “I'm gonna go check on him.”
Stella nods, clearly sensing his need to see his brother after their heavy conversation. “Yeah, yeah, go on,” she says, untangling her arms from around him and giving him a gentle nudge. “Take your time.”
With a grateful nod, Kelly heads down the hall, swallowing past the lump in his throat and pushing open the door to the guest bedroom.
The lamp is on, casting a dim light and shadows across the room. Damon is sprawled out on the bed, the covers already rumpled and only halfway covering him. Some color has returned to his cheeks, perhaps a result of solid nutrients from his earlier dinner, and it lends to the reality that he's only sleeping.
Kelly stands there for a second, just watching the slow rise and fall of his brother's chest. Too shallow and a little wheezy, but there.
Alive.
“Quit staring, it's creepy.”
Kelly snorts at the mumbled words as Damon peeks an eye open. “Just checking in on you,” he says. He raises an eyebrow. “You look like hell.”
“Appreciate the compliment.”
“Anytime. You in pain?”
Damon scrunches up his nose in thought. “Not really,” he finally says, which isn't particularly convincing. “Mostly sore. And tired. Kinda feels like there's a car parked on my chest. But other than that…great.”
“Love the optimism,” Kelly quips.
Damon lifts his good shoulder in a shrug.
“Rest will help.”
“I've been resting for the past three days.” There's a note of petulance in the younger man's voice.
“And you'll keep resting for the next few weeks,” Kelly throws back.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. That's what happens when you get crushed under half a house.” The words are meant in jest, but they sour as they come out his mouth. Too soon.
Damon rolls his eyes, but a faint crease forms above his brow, lips twisting slightly.
“What?” Kelly asks, stepping further into the room.
Damon exhales, the sound shallow but heavy. “Nothing. Just…I didn't think I'd make it out,” he says, the words almost a whisper.
Kelly's gut churns, nauseating memories of that night returning in full force. The chaos, the shouting, the heat. The moment of realization. In an effort to reassure both of them, he echoes Stella's words just a few minutes earlier. “But you did.”
“Thanks to you.” Damon’s gaze flickers upward to meet his brother's. You saved me, Kelly.”
I shouldn't have had to. The bitter words sit on his tongue but don't make it out. He knows deep down that what happened wasn't Herrmann's fault, wasn't really anybody's fault, but Kelly can't help but wonder if there's some way the whole incident could have been avoided. Because it's easier when there's someone to blame—even if that someone is himself. Harder to accept a freak accident that leaves a firefighter fighting for his life, wondering if he'll ever be able to return to the job he loves.
“Yeah, well—that’s what older brothers are for,” he finally says, letting one corner of his mouth curve upward.
Damon smiles back, the expression bringing some of the youth back to his eyes.
An unexpected wave of emotion wells up within Kelly. If he feels this protective toward his brother, he can't imagine what it will be like when he has a kid of his own. The thought alone is terrifying enough to make him dizzy.
In an effort to distract himself from said thoughts, he moves over to the bed, adjusting the comforter where it's slipped down like the over-worried, hovering brother Damon has previously rightfully accused him of being.
“Go back to sleep,” he instructs, easing himself down into the armchair Stella had moved over to the bedside earlier, which gets him a raised eyebrow.
“You gonna sit there all night?”
“Just until you pass out and start snoring.”
Damon has the audacity to look affronted. “I do not snore.”
Now Kelly lifts an eyebrow. “I’ve heard you in the bunkroom. You give Capp a run for his money.”
Damon groans. “That’s not funny.”
Kelly smirks and leans back in the chair, the worn leather creaking under his weight. “Truth hurts.”
His brother looks like he wants to argue, but his eyelids are fluttering as sleep tries to claim him once again—the meds and pure exhaustion winning out over continued banter. He shifts slightly beneath the covers, a wince tugging at the corners of his mouth as he moves. A soft exhale blows past his lips, his breaths evening out in mere seconds.
He does snore.
Despite his promise to only stay until Damon fell asleep, Kelly lingers a few minutes longer, just listening to the quiet, anchoring sound of his brother's breathing and allowing it to soothe the ache in his chest.
Knowing Stella is waiting for him out in the kitchen, he finally stands to his feet, gaze sweeping over the sleeping form before him one last time. Then he turns off the lamp and slips back out into the quiet of the hall.
His brother has a long road ahead of him, but Kelly's going to make sure he doesn't have to go down it alone.