Heat In The City (Raging Inferno) Ruling Chicago #3 (Chicago Fire/Chicago PD)

Chapter 24 "Under The Circumstances"

Shaylynn starts walking into the kitchen with Severide following her, "Are you hungry?" she asks him.
"Starved!" he says.
"How about homemade pizza?" she asks him, "While it's being made, we'll have plenty of time to talk."
Severide smiles, "Alright!" he says.
"Do you want to help?" she asks him.
"Sure!" Severide says rolling up his sleeves.
Shaylynn goes through the cupboards and gets all the ingredients they'll need, along with measuring utensils and a mixing bowl.
Both of them start measuring out the ingredients and put them into the bowl.
Severide looks over at Shaylynn, "I guess we should talk" he tells her.
"Yes we should," she says while she mixes the ingredients together.
"I know the huge pink elephant in the room is why I walked out. I have thought about this every day why I did this" he says while Shaylynn puts a towel over the bowl to give the yeast some time to activate, she turns to look at him, "I've realized I'm more like my father than I thought I was! Every time when things got rough for him in a relationship he would walk away, just like I did. Shaylynn, I don't want to be like that! That's not me, that's him! I want to break the cycle! Just like the Fertility Center, I swear I had good intentions there. I wasn't out to hurt you! If something came of it, great then I would have let you know. If nothing happened then you would have never known and you wouldn't have been hurt. Shaylynn, you don't realize how much it hurt me to see you out in the backyard so upset! Everything that happened with Austin, I was totally out of line! I know you had no control over him! What I said about Kelly Jr, Saraya, and Damian, Shaylynn I am so sorry!" he tells her with tears starting to form in his eyes, "After the words came out of my mouth I wished I could have taken them back! Everything that's happened after all of that, I feel like I've been in a whirlwind!"
Shaylynn just stands there, "Kelly, I need to know when things get tough that you're going to be there for me!" she tells him, Severide stares at her, "These last couple of times were I got "lost" in my own head you were there to bring me back out. Then that time at the beach and when you came here and I was in the backyard. I believe you when you say that you don't want to be like your father and you want to break the cycle! But it's going to take a lot more than those times to prove that! You can't be around for the good times and then leave when the bad times hit. I don't feel we're quite to the point of moving back in together just yet. We did that before and look what happened."
"So what do you want to do?" Severide asks her.
"To be honest, I don't know! I'm scared of being hurt again if I let you in too quickly!" she tells him.
"What about last night?" he asks her.
"That was because I almost lost you like Marshall! My emotions got the best of me! It was the heat of the moment!" she says.
"I hope sooner than later we figure this out! I can't keep staying with Tony!" Severide says walking away to sit down.
"I talked to Frank your old neighbor, he said your old place is available, why not move into there instead of staying with Tony," Shaylynn tells him.
"You're going to trust me to have my own place?" Severide asks her.
Shaylynn raises an eyebrow, "Are you going to be sleeping around if you have your own place? If you are, then this talk was for nothing and we should see lawyers tomorrow morning!" she tells him.
Severide shakes his head 'no', "That's not what I meant! There are some people out there that don't want to see us get back together and would tell you anything to make that happen!" he tells her.
"And who would do that?" Shaylynn asks him.
Severide gives her a look, "He works with your Dad!" he says.
Shaylynn glares at him, "Then I should expect most of the female population in Chicago will contact me because they're upset that we're trying to get back together?"
"That was uncalled for!" Severide tells her.
"So was your comment!" Shaylynn tells him in an angry tone.
"Okay, let's just stop before something serious is said and can't be taken back!" Severide says.
"Agreed!" Shaylynn says checking on the dough.
"Tell me about Lucifer," Severide tells her.
With her back to Severide, she rolls her eyes, "I don't think that's a good idea!" she says, "I don't want you getting pissed off over something that happened years ago!"
"If I was going to get pissed off I wouldn't have asked about him," he tells her, "You said you and the guys were in LA helping to hunt down a murderer?"
Shaylynn takes the dough out of the bowl, sprinkles it with flour and starts kneading it, "Yes, by the time we got there he had already killed forty people. We were assigned to Detective Decker and Lucifer just happen to be with her. Being in the club business, a lot of questionable people come and go through there. Somehow he became a consultant for the LAPD and good friends with Chloe. So where ever she was, he was there also. What happened with Lucifer shouldn't have happened! I met him six months after Marshall died and I was nothing but into my work. When I met Lucifer, he sparked something in me. He flipped a switch that had been turned off for quite some time. Then things happened. Lucifer is always surrounded by women! He wouldn't know how to be with one person if it bit him on the ass! So don't think he's here to rekindle anything because he's not!" she tells him kneading the dough more aggressively.
Severide sees what she's doing. He stands up and walks up behind her, putting his arms around her.
"Talk to me, Shaylynn! What's wrong?" he asks her.
She stops kneading the dough and hangs her head, "Things are getting on my nerves a lot quicker! What's going on at work, personal life, everything! I need something stable in my life, Kelly! I wish it was us!" she says.
He turns her around and pulls her to him for a hug, "I know, Babe! Maybe I should go so you can have some time to think about us. We need to decide what we're going to do about our relationship. This can't be healthy going back and forth like we are" he tells her.
"I'm sure it's not!" Shaylynn says.
Severide puts a finger under her chin to make her raise her head, "I'm going to go. If you want to talk tomorrow, call me!" he says then kisses her.
He starts walking to the front door and grabs his coat, "I'll see you later!" Severide says as he puts on his coat.
Grabbing the doorknob he opens the door and walks out to his truck.
Shaylynn stands there and watches Severide walk away.
After he drives off, she shuts the door and walks back to the kitchen to finish up the pizza.

Forty minutes later, the pizza is finally done.
Taking it out of the oven, Shaylynn hears a knock at the door.
She walks to the front door and opens it, "Connor? What are you doing here?" she asks.
"There's a little girl who I performed surgery on that lives two blocks away. I was checking on her since she can't get out in this weather, so I thought I would stop by to see how you're doing" Rhodes tells her.
"Come in!" Shaylynn tells him.
Rhodes walks in, Shaylynn shuts the door behind him. He takes off his coat and hangs it up.
"Are you hungry?" she asks him, "I have a homemade pizza that just came out of the oven and I can't eat it all."
He smiles at her, "Okay! That sounds great!"
Shaylynn starts walking toward the kitchen with Rhodes following her.
"Go ahead and sit down," Shaylynn tells him.
Rhodes sits down at the table while Shaylynn puts the pizza on the table then goes to the cupboard to get some plates. She sits the plates down and then gets some drinks.
After everything is on the table, she sits down, "How are you doing?" Rhodes asks her.
"I'm doing okay!" she tells him as she grabs a piece of pizza.
"Shaylynn..." Rhodes says to her.
"What?" she asks.
"Tell me how you really are?" he says.
She looks at him, "I'm really stressed! With everything that's going on at work and with Kelly, I swear I'm going to have an aneurysm!"
"Things will work out! They always do!" he tells her, "Have you and Kelly talked recently?"
"Yes, he left a while ago" she tells him.
"This is really good!" Rhodes says with a full mouth.
Shaylynn laughs at him, "It was nice of you to stop and check on that little girl! Not many doctors would do that" she says.
"Will, Natalie, and Ethan would have!" he tells her grinning.
"Okay, other then you four, no other doctor would have stopped and checked on her!" Shaylynn tells him.
"It was great what you did for Jay under the circumstances!" Rhodes says.
Shaylynn stares at him, "There was no 'under the circumstances'! Jay needed help! Will pleaded with me to try and do something. There was no guarantee I could help Jay, but luckily I was able to! Unlike Rodney, I couldn't save him! He put that gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger right in front of me then fell into the water and I couldn't do anything!" she says.
Rhodes sees she's staring to the side of him and not blinking, "Shaylynn!!! NO! NO! NO! Don't you dare go there! Kelly will kick my ass if I have to call him because I let you go to that dark place!" Rhodes tells her.
"I'm fine, Connor!" Shaylynn tells him.
He looks at her, "Now I'm afraid to leave you!" he tells her.
"You have nothing to worry about! Anyways, why would you be worried about me for?" she asks him.
"One, because I'm a doctor and two because I'm your friend and have seen first hand what PTSD, depression, etc can do to a person!" Rhodes tells her.
"Connor, I'm so sorry! I forgot all about your Mom, I wasn't thinking!" she tells him upset at herself.
"Shaylynn, it's fine!" he tells her.
Rhodes receives a call, "Excuse me!" he says answering his phone.
A couple of seconds later he's off, "I have to go! Emergency surgery" he tells her standing up.
Shaylynn stands up and follows Rhodes to the front door.
He grabs his coat and puts it on, "Thanks for the pizza! At least now I won't have to go through surgery hungry" he says.
Shaylynn smiles, "You're welcome! I'm glad it didn't go to waste!"
Rhodes opens the door, "See you around!" he says walking out.
"Stay safe!" Shaylynn says as she sees the snow has picked up.
Rhodes gets in his car and drives off.
Shaylynn shuts the door and walks to the kitchen to clean up. She picks up her phone to turn on some music when she notices she has a text message....

Kelly: Good night, Gorgeous!

Shaylynn smiles.
She gets to cleaning up the kitchen.
Finally done, she heads upstairs to get ready for bed. She needs to make sure she's on time tomorrow seeing that she has to go to the FBI.
If she isn't, Sam will let her have it. Then she would have to let Sam have it.
She would hate to have to stomp her little sister in front of everyone.
Shaylynn smiles at the thought.