Conquering Chicago (Chicago Fire 1)

Why are you avoiding me?

Emily didn't do kids. If she could avoid taking on a case that involved children, she would find a way to do so. But with every FBI Agent, there is one case that will always follow you around. That case could be one that you solved, but seeing what the worst in humanity had to offer was permanently ingrained in their memory. For Emily Halstead, this case involved 23 dead children, all of the found in a house of horrors. Ronald York, the unsub who Emily would refer to as the devil, had kidnapped them before torturing and killing them.

It took the FBI, 8 years to catch him. 8 years, of dead children. Emily offered to interrogate him, wanting to crack this unsub. For 72 hours, she stayed in the room with him - asking him question after question. It was this case that got Emily to think about leaving the FBI, then 12 months later she was standing over the body of a baby. Then she decided it was time for her to leave. And she did.

"Morning" Matt said to Emily said as she walked through the loading bay of the firehouse. She looked up at her friend and smiled back at him, before continuing to walk into the common room. The moment she walked in, she noticed Severide - he was just looking at her, this caused Emily to turn around and dart out of the room. Just wanting to get away from Kelly as quickly as she could. Gabby followed after her, calling out to her newly formed best friend. "Are you okay?" Gabby asked, when she had finally been able to catch up to Emily in the locker room.

"Yeah, I'm good" Emily told Gabby, knowing that she should tell her what was going on. She trusted her, but she was embarrassed. Embarrassed that she had let this guy in and he had hurt her.

"Why did you basically ran out of the common room?" Gabby asked, wanting to get to the truth.

"I just remembered that I had a cereal bar in my locker, so I came to get it" Emily told her friend, opening her locker and pulling out an old cereal bar. Gabby watched carefully as Emily unwrapped the bar and broke it in half, giving one half to her and keeping the other half for herself.

"Are you sure?" Gabby asked her, as she put the cereal bar in her mouth and ate it. Emily just nodded back at her friend, not really wanting the spray the cereal bar all over the locker room. "Come on then, lets get a cup of coffee" Gabby said, walking out of the locker room - leaving Emily to follow after her. In the common room, Severide stood with Otis - listening to him talking about some girl. As Emily walked into the common room, Severide's attention was drawn to her - and she noticed this. So, Emily put her head down as she picked up a coffee cup.

"Hey, Halstead" Severide said, moving away from Otis and towards Emily - he watched as she slowly looked at him. Gaining eye contact for the first time that day. "What's going on?" He asked, knowing that something was bothering her.

"Nothing" Emily said, taking her coffee and walking away. She walked into the bunk area, just wanting to sit down with her coffee somewhere quiet. But she could hear Severide's footsteps following behind her.

"Why are you avoiding me?" He asked, pulling her into his office.

"I'm not avoiding you" Emily told him. Severide reached out towards her, trying to take her hands in his own - he felt disheartened when she pulled her hands away from him.

"What have I done?" Severide asked.

"It's nothing. Don't stress about it" Emily stated, not wanting to get into all of this here. "Can we just drop it please?" She asked.

"For whatever it is I've done, I'm sorry" Severide said to her, just hoping she'd say something back to him. Maybe tell him what the problem was. Instead, Emily didn't speak. She just walked back into the common room, straight away she could hear Sylvie Brett complaining to Gabby.