So.... he is coming back.... Phew!
I couldn't resist writing my version of what happened after the cameras stopped rolling at the end of s11 leaving Stella going to bring her husband home....
Theres a few home truths from Stella.... which, to be honest, I think he deserves... 🤷♀️
For everyone who kept that faith.... ❤️
********
Chicago weather in summer could be so unpredictable. One minute, there's a heatwave, and you feel like you're being suffocated inside your own skin, the next, you're searching out your rain coat. And today was the suffocating inside your skin kind of day.
That much was for sure when she ran down the front steps of Trudy and Mouchs's house, relieved but not relieved. Mouch was home and going to be o.k. However, his days on Truck 81 were done, and Stella felt an enormous sense of grief. But not just because her rear guard was taking retirement. It seemed there was just too much change right now for her sanity to keep a hold of itself. And now she needed to figure out whether she was going to head to O'Hare and board that plane, a reservation that she had changed twice already in the past few days.
Climbing into the jeep, she pulled the sun visor down and stared at her reflection. Hollow brown eyes stared back at her, a seriousness there that seemed to have become habitual, and she wondered how long it had been there. Didn't she used to smile a lot? She snapped the visor back down with an angry swipe, ordering herself not to cry. She didn't want Mouch to retire! She wanted things to go back to what they were. Before Kelly went away. Fuck arson investigating, fire cops and training programs! Fuck being a Lieutenant! Fuck everything! It could all go to hell!
Fishing her cell out from her purse, she brought up Delta's online booking page, her fingers stabbing her reference number into the screen and followed the instructions, before dropping the cell onto the passenger seat and putting the jeep into 'drive.'
******
The sun was beating down on the back of her neck, sweat collecting in beads, while she fiddled with the lock, trying to rotate the key inside the metal fastener.
'The lock sticks....' She could hear his voice in her ear so clearly, which right now just managed to piss her off even more.
That was in between the fingers squeezing around her heart.
Why didn't he just fix this damn thing! He was so bloody fastidious about everything else!
The grinding of the key and a little impatient pulling and shoving, and the padlock gave up, opening the door to the cabin.
Picking up her bag, she threw it inside the cabin, the same way he had over a year ago, but this time he wasn't here to carry her over the threshold and she was very much alone. She didn't exactly know whether she had meant to cancel her booking, but hours after leaving Mouch's house, she wasn't on an aeroplane, but standing infront of the empty fire place in the cabin after having done what her husband was good at doing best when he was scared of his life spiralling out of control. Hiding.
So instead of going to front him, she had escaped to his bolthole, and in early June it was beautiful. The air was clean and smelled fragrant. Trees were adorned in the colors of summer, and everything spoke of hope and promise. Except her heart. Stella could totally understand why Kelly loved it here and he was wrong when he had accused her of hating the cabin. She didn't. O.k she was a bit of an urbanite, having lived her entire life in built-up towns and cities and winter days in the cabin were felt far meaner than in the Loft but summer here was really pretty. And sub consciously, she knew the real reason why she was here now. This was his place, and it made her feel closer to him, and here she didn't have to face up to the reality of asking him to come home, and agonizing over what if he said he didn't want to.
Stella sat on the deck with a glass of wine curled up in the rocker chair they had found at a local market one weekend of escape last summer. She had loved it immediately, and later that very afternoon, she had watched him from her lazy spot on the deck while he had restored the old chair. He had thrown off his shirt in the summer heat, deep in concentration, patiently cleaning and sanding down the peeling paint and then repainting it until it was like new. It was a perfect afternoon she would always remember as being one of pure happiness.
Absently, she ran her hand along the smooth wood. If things had gone to plan, she would have gone ahead and done what she had told Carver she was going to do. Bring her husband home. But she had barely got halfway to O'Hare when Chief had called her, and she had done a U turn and headed straight to Med. Mouch had had an internal bleed and had been rushed to the O.R. For a few hours, it'd been racy, but the old war horse had saved them all a lot of heartbreak when a pale but relieved Trudy had finally come out into the waiting room and shared that they had successfully stopped the bleed. Stella had stayed around until she was certain he was good, although his news that he was putting his papers in for retirement had rocked her, but she understood. It was time for Mouch to live out some of his other dreams.
It was so tranquil at the cabin, the two acre pond in front of it calm and still, like a sheet of glass, the sky a mid blue, and the early evening temperature warm as the day drifted towards sunset. She had spent a lazy day, much of it on the deck, starting with meeting the morning sun, trying to untangle a head full of chaos and answer some of the hundred questions about her marriage that had crowded out her brain, ever since the day Cruz had unwittingly shared that Kelly was no longer in Alabama, a fact Kelly had for some reason omitted telling her. And the more she thought about it, the more twisted her head got. This wasn't the marriage she signed up for. Finding out things second hand. She'd had enough of that from her time with Grant.
But the time here was giving her space to breathe and try and articulate those thoughts into something that would make sense to him when she did go to see him. She loved him entirely, and she couldn't, wouldn't, contemplate her life without him. But this wasn't working for her. This enforced separation that was driving them further and further apart.
The next morning, she busied herself with a few chores in the cabin. Dressed in T shirt , shorts, and sneakers, the windows were thrown open, and she swept away the months of dust that had accumulated around the place. Kelly would have been proud of her! It had invigorated her as if somehow it was clearing away her own indecisions and uncertainty.
She would fly out to Kelly tomorrow and tell him exactly how she was feeling and that she was taking him home. No second guessing, or answers like 'that's a little up in the air, right now'. They were married, and she needed to know that meant something.
And that was the thought playing through her head when she heard the rapping on the open door and turned around to see who it was, her eyes widening as they changed from a question to shock.
Kelly?!
There were smudges of dirt on her face, her hair scrunched up on the top of her head, eyes wide and startled, and in that moment, a crashing tidal wave of emotion floored him. Jesus, he had missed her, so much.....
But uncertainty followed straight on its heels as she just stood there, not making a sound or move.
"Hey."
He spoke first.
She had gone mute, frozen to the spot.
Her silence was unnerving Kelly. She was usually so demonstrative and impetuous. The Stella that he knew would be flying into his arms by now.
"How...?"
She finally spoke, and that was all she said.
"Don't I get a hello?" Kelly raised a brow, his mouth widening, his voice teasing.
"Yeah... uh.... sorry...yeah...Hi...."
Confused by her apparent paralysis from seeing him, Kelly took the half dozen steps to where she was standing, coming to stand in front of her.
"Hi, wifey." Cupping his hands around her face, he kissed her, slowly and tenderly, and that finally kickstarted Stella back to life.
Her arms went around him, her body angling into his, her lips clinging, and when he pulled back, her eyes were bright with all kinds of emotions and questions.
"What are you doing here?" She whispered, lips still hovering against his.
"I could ask you the same?" Kelly had been surprised to say the least when he had arrived back at the Loft and found the keys to the cabin gone along with her jeep.
He was still not expecting to find her here of all places, convinced the whole journey that she had probably just loaned the cabin out to one of her friends. But hanging over that was that their last conversation hadn't gone particularly well. His ill thought out, not telling her he had moved on from Alabama, had been received angrily on her part and a dozen questions that she had asked he had just stupidly parried away. Classic Kelly disappearing up his own ass, forgetting the impact of his decisions on her. And then yesterday, Chief had called him to tell him about Mouch and something else he hadn't known either, that Stella had been on her way to him but had had to delay it. Fifteen minutes later, he had pulled the plug on his part in the AFT investigation and packed his things, and got the first flight home this morning, knowing without doubt it was where he should be.
And here she was, the last place he expected her to be, somewhere he used to run away to, and seeing her skittishness around him, he knew her being here was something bigger than her being pissed at him.
"I needed some space..... to think."
His shoulders stiffened despite trying not to panic. That didn't sound good.
"About?"
"Us..." One word, that sounded like it meant a whole lot more.
Butterflies took off inside his stomach and flew upwards into his chest.
She was chewing her bottom lip, and very acutely, he really didn't want to hear what she was going to say. He was noticing all kinds of things instead, her skin, her hair, her brown eyes that he loved, There were so many little habits of hers that he had begun to know so well, making them a part of him. But right now, they were staring at him with an agitated unhappiness that beat at him.
And now she was detangling herself out of his arms, and his hands fell away as she stepped back.
"What happened to the AFT gig?" Composing herself, she tried not to drink him in, greedily. He'd had a hair cut at some point. It was shorter than she recalled.
"jacked it in....." Kelly leaned back against the back of the couch, watching her intently.
"Why? It sounded like it was really important to you." There was no ambaguity that she meant it as a jab.
"Not as important as you." His response was softly spoken, eyes staying fixed upon hers.
That caught her out.
"I was coming out to see you..... before Mouch got rushed into the O.R." Stella countered.
"I know.... It's why I came back. "
Her eyebrow rose, surprised.
"I should have been there for you. When Mouch got hurt..."
It was the second thing he'd said that caught her out.
The silence hung around them. There was so much she wanted to say to him, good and bad and not from three feet away. But he should know that she was an overthinker. After all the crap with Boston, how had they got themselves in another situation from being apart?
"Why didn't you call me to tell me you were coming home?"
"I don't think we do great on the cell......." Well, he was right about that. And then. " Stella, are we o.k?"
"You're asking me?"
Time retracted, and they were on the couch in the Loft. After Boston. This time in reverse.
Her eyes held his, her face sombre and then lifted her hands up in a gesture of misery and defeat.
"I can't do our marriage, the way we're doing it...... " The words came out as an agonized whisper. It was meant to sound stronger.
Her teeth had started worrying her bottom lip again, but her eye contact remained glued to him.
"Separately.......the not knowing things about you ..........where you are....." The words were tumbling out chaotically. It wasn't quite how she had rehearsed it. "You've regressed back to hanging out in your own head.....by yourself."
"I didn't mean to..."
"Kelly..... I.... need more of you than you're giving me..."
He was silent. More of him? But he loved her. More than life itself.
"I love you." She began, taking a step forward.
"Why do I sense a but coming...." His attempt at making light of it didn't come off.
But I can't be with you.
Blue eyes flickered. Please, don't say that to me again... Christ, his head was going into meltdown!
"There is no but.... I love you, and I need us at home. Together."
The relief nearly made his knees weak, glad he was still leaning against the couch.
"O.k."
"O.k?.... just like that?" Her expression was skeptical. This couldn't just be one of those conversations that was forgotten in the morning.
"It's where I want to be, Stella."
He meant it. Just being near her made everything make sense. Even with all the fascinating lectures, the arson site visits, and the space age technology at the academy, all of it paled into insignificance compared to the illuminated smile she shone on him each day at home, the comfort of her hand on the back of his neck when he was stressed or tired or the haven of her body.
"Then why have you stayed away so long?!" Stella didn't mean to snap, but the tightly held in hurt was beginning to unravel.
Kelly looked uncomfortable, to say the least, his eyes apologetic and guilty.
"I screwed up." The same thing she had said to him last year.
"Yeah, you can say that again! I know that I have no right to feel pissed after my monumental balls up with Boston." Her eyes had started to glitter, and he sensed she was going to cry. " But, I thought we learned from that about how we need to keep communicating.... otherwise...whats the point?.." She was furiously blinking, trying to bat away the tears.
Kelly took a step towards her, desparate to put his arms around her.
"Stella, this isnt a pissing contest about who fucked up the most..."
It was the wrong thing to say.
"I didn't say it was...!" She folded her arms, her body language defensive so he stayed where he was, flailing now, not knowing what was the right thing to say or do. "But you know what.....Ever since you went away, you've been making me feel insignificant in your life,... The arson stuff became everything to you, and Chicago and everyone in it became.....of little importance in your life!"
"That's not true!" Kelly straightened, holding his hands out to her. She was so wrong!
"No? Then why were we the last ones to know that the course was over, huh?" She was shooting angry sparks at him now. "And that you'd got a spot on some AFT investigation?... I'm not even asking about me now, Kelly....I'm only your wife, after all... but Cruz, whose been doing a damn good job stepping up? And what about Chief? What, Kelly? None of us deserved to know what was going on with you? Were your new 'family ' the only ones who needed to know that you were no longer in Alafuckingbama!?...."
She was properly riled, eyes blazing at him and color flooded his face. Normally, Kelly Severide would come out fighting, but not this time. His wife had very succinctly made him feel like a total prick.
"It wasn't like that..."
"O.k. Tell me what it was like, then?! Because right now I'm struggling to work out how I came to be so far down on your list of priorities, that you thought telling me you had moved States was 'no big deal...." Her lip was trembling now, reminding him of the words he'd used when she'd questioned him. "Was it o.k for me to be working bar in Molly's with Cruz chewing me out for not telling him you were going to be away even longer, because some white shirt had dropped it into conversation....Sounds like everyone except 51 knew!"
The well of her emotional resilience overflowed, and the tears ran, she opened her mouth to go on but then closed it on a sob.
She ran past him, and he reached out a hand to her, but she ignored it and was out of the open doorway before he could turn around.
The sound of her sobs sounded like a haunting lament in nature's summer landscape outside, and each one lashed inside his chest as he stood helplessly inside the cabin. Stella's words had cut deep, leaving an uncomfortable emerging picture of what it was like from her end.
Following her outside, he saw her, sitting curled up in her rocking seat, her head buried into her knees, her arms wrapped around herself.
Hesitatingly approaching her, Kelly hunkered down beside her, a hand reaching out to her hair. She didn't move, her shoulders shaking from the weeping. Moving onto his knees, he put his head on hers, his fingers searching out hers.
"I'm so sorry, babe." His whisper was agonized, and he was rewarded by even more uncontrollable crying. Stella was not a crier but he didn't think he'd ever heard her sound so broken, not after all their bust ups, the RPG or even the heartbreak of loss.
Kelly's gut clenched, a knife twisting in it with the knowledge he had brought her to this, hating himself in a way he'd never experienced before.
He was supposed to protect her and had promised her to spend his life being worthy of her, and instead, he had crushed the most beautiful spirit he had ever known because of his own inability to think outside of his own head.
They stayed like that for an age until, eventually, her crying subsided, and she raised her head with swollen, damp, red eyes.
Kelly used the pad of his thumb to wipe away the damp collected under her eyes.
"Stella, I love you. So much." His voice was hoarse. "But I keep doing this to you.... even when I try to do better..."
His torment was clear, a plea for forgiveness in eyes that glistened with unshed tears.
Everything inside her that loved him pulled at her heartstrings, and she faced him sniffing, drained, and hollow but wanting nothing more than anything for this to be resolved.
"I miss you.... and I don't know how to stop doing that." She whispered, her face betraying the kind of love most people search for all their lives.
Kelly nodded and closed his eyes for a second, unable to take her despair, and then standing up, he took her hand and swapped places so that he was in the rocker seat, cradling her in his arms, her head on his shoulder.
He kissed her so tenderly that the tears started again.
"Please don't cry." He murmured against her mouth, tasting the saltiness of her tears.
Stella stayed in his arms, putting her head on his chest, her eyes making his T damp.
"I asked Chief what Benny was like.... to work out if you were really like him after all... "
Kelly stiffened under her.
"I'm not Benny, Stella." His words were quietly spoken. "I'm not good at saying things... not the way you are...." His hand stayed in her hair. "I threw myself into the course, the detail, the investigations..... " He tried hard to explain.
"It doesn't matter..." Stella stopped him, her fingers twirling the silver chain around his neck.
"No..it does matter.... I want you to know that I tried......"
Stella lifted up eyes.
"I missed you, Stella... more than you will ever know. But I had decided from day one, I would have to deal. I had to bury myself in the studies to forget home. I told myself you had the house and they'd take care of you.... "
They looked at each other. Pain and defeat on each other's faces.
"The house wasn't enough, Kelly. I kept trying to be supportive of you, but it just felt like I was losing you to arson investigating."
" That's the bit I overlooked. I thought I was the only one putting up with being lonely and missing you. Saying I'm struggling isn't something I know how to do... so I just... got on with it....I kept telling myself that one day, if we needed it, I'll have it behind me, and it will give us some options, and it will have been worth it..."
"You were thinking that?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you just tell me?"
His laugh was self-deprecating. "And when have I ever been good at telling anyone, anything?"
"And the AFT gig?"
"I wanted to do it less than you wanted me to.....I knew it meant being away longer. I had been detailed to do it... so not the kind of thing you say no to.....I should have told you..... I know that...But now I'm thinking that maybe I didn't because I knew I'd be disappointing you.... "
"So.... what did you tell them about why you were leaving?"
"That I needed to go home, to my wife."
Stella put her hand on his face.
"We've got some work to do still, babe, right?"
He nodded quietly. "We do."
"Kiss me again."
"That, I can do."
His kiss was gentle as rainfall, and it made her breath hitch somewhere.
Tracing the lines of his neck, she laid her head back onto his shoulder, sighing. What was the point of arguing with him? In the end this never changed for them... this. She'd always be ready to trade anything she had for this feeling with him. His teeth grazed her ear around the curve before taking the lobe in between his mouth. It amazed her how this could make her melt into nothing. They made out in between her sniffs and more soft crying, Kelly drinking up her tears in the hope he could stop them.
Picking her up, he carried her inside, kicking shut the door, depositing her on the bed and following her right down, his mouth on hers.
Clothes were an unnecessary impediment, so were loosened, pulled away, and discarded.
They had missed each other, and the fall out earlier just made everything more sensitive, but he wasn't going to hurry this if it killed him. This was their reward for the last interminably long three months. He kissed her wedding ring, her mouth, the slope of her shoulder. His hands on her breasts, slowly he moved down her body, and ran his tongue along the curve of her thigh, the skin silky smooth, and tasting of almonds and vanilla. Taking his time... gentle.. he reminded her of what he could do to her with the flick of his tongue, letting her fall apart, her hoarse cries in turn a reminder of what that sound did to him.
The afternoon sun leant a heat that turned skin damp, a sultry drape inside the moody dimness of the cabin. She was beneath him, her body undulating like a gentle wave, under skilful fingers that teased and played and rediscovered and then in turn where longing was fulfilled. Trailing his mouth over her breasts, he took the pebbled hardness into his mouth and adored her in the way he knew how to, to tell her that way the things he hadn't said while he was away.
Resting his forehead on hers, he moved in between her legs, they were somewhere between making love and fucking, needing both, making up for the days and nights when they had done nothing but crave this. She didn't know how he held on, but he did..between her trembling thighs, the concentration controlled in the grip of her hands inside his, the measured thrusts that stroked muscles and nerve endings into a trembling dissolution of mind and body.
Afterwards, they held each other, arms and legs tangled together even in the lazy post sex sleep that drifted over them.
"What did you miss about me most?" Her murmur was needy, her fingers trailing down his back.
She awoke first.
"Your weirdness. " Kelly replied after a long moment, eyes still closed.
"I'm not weird!" Stella sat up, swiping his ass.
Kelly laughed, a beautiful noise she wanted to capture and keep inside her head forever.
"Okay, not weirdness... the way you talk to yourself sometimes..."
He was lying on his stomach, he opened his eyes, his hand reaching for tendrils of her hair, just looking at her.
"Anything else?" She asked with a mock frown.
"The way you ask questions, but you don't want an answer." He closed one eye, expecting another swipe.
"Well..... something I didn't miss about you, is your OCD about everything....." stella huffed.
"Hey....I dont have..." Kelly dropped her hair.
"You know you do....Babe, you should see the squad rig...It could really use a good clean......" Stella lay back down, snuggling closer to him, inserting a leg in between his.
"What?!"
"And none of them ever know where anything has been stored in the tool compartments..... it causes a lot of confusion on calls..."
"I thought you said Cruz was doing a great job?!"
Stella had been nuzzling his chest and stopped to lift her lashes up to look at him, brown eyes twinkling, and he realised she had been playing with him...
Leaning over her, he smacked her ass and she squealed, starting to laugh...
This is what they had missed.... this...