It's been already two hours that Matthew and Charly were driving all across the Windy City at the research of the missing Squad Lieutenant, and they weren't the only ones. All the firehouse was out, reaching for him, looking across every single bar that Severide might be.
"Can you call Shay?" Matt asked his passenger, focusing on looking the small street at his left.
"Yeah sur" Charlotte replied, feeling a little helpless not knowing what looks like the missing man.
She reached Casey's mobile phone and unlock it. Scrolling down his contact list, she finally dialed Kelly Severide's best friend number. After what seems like an eternity, she picks up the phone.
"Hey Leslie, it's Charly" she started. "Any news?"
"Nope. I... I'm starting to think that he had something behind his mind when he felt the firehouse with all his stuff, saying that he quitted 51."
"We're going to find him!" she tried to reassure, no believing in her own words. "Did you notice something strange in his comportement recently? I don't know, something that has happened which could influence him..."
"The graveyard" Leslie cut her.
"Which one?"
"I... I... I don't remember the name but Matt will know where it is. I have to hang up, we're calling us for an intervention. Keep me posted!"
"What did she say?" Casey asked directly.
"She said he might be at the graveyard..."
"Shit!" he mumbled.
"What?" Charly questioned.
Even if he was driving, the fireman took his phone and tried to find a picture to explain it to Charlotte. When he found the picture of Andy, he showed it to her. She frowned slightly, having another flashback.
"When?" she simply asked, understanding perfectly what had happened.
"Months ago. We were working on a house fire, there was no vent but he went through the window, no listening to my orders, before to me eating alive by a blast" he explained. "Ah, fuck!" he growled. "I should have been here for him, me more than the other. He was acting so weird, so different from the day you woke up, and I didn't know how to act or what to say, and like if that wasn't enough, Andy died and... and I got the feeling that I have lost Kelly too."
"Then you have to tell him what you feel" she answered whereas Matt parked his truck on the roadside.
Together, with the help of their phone's flashlight because of the dark night, they walked in the graveyard reaching Kelly. Arrived at Andy Darden's grave, both of them let out an oath.
"You know the road he uses to take?" The former firefighter asked.
Casey nodded. They made their way back to the car and drove again, hoping to find him.
"God!" Charly yelled, constating a car crash against a pylon.
When she noticed the blank expression on the pale face of Gabby's boyfriend, she understood that they have found him. Against that pylon, that was Severide's car. Without hesitation, she ran out of the car she was in and reached the one that was crashed. The bloody face of the man made her heart skipped a beat before to paralyze her.
"Everybody out now!" Boden yelled, watching the burning building start to break down.
All the women and men already outside were watching anxiously: inside of that building, there were their brothers.
"Truck 81, Squad 3, report!" The Batallion Chief ordered.
"We're out by the back door"Casey's voice blurted out of the Chief's radio. "Capp and Tony with us" he added.
"Severide report!" Wallace yelled, worried.
Hissing through the Chief's radio was heard first, signaling that the leader of the Squad 3 has activated his radio.
"Chief..." he tried to say, hurt in his voice.
"Severide where the hell are you?" The Chief asked in return, not liking the tone on his man's voice.
"Trapped" he managed to say, through the pain.
"Kelly stay with me!" He shouted while a hard choice becomes clearer in his mind. There's no way he could risk to put his men in that unstable building again but there was no way too he could abandon one of his best men in, dying. "Talk to me!" He ordered, the silence of his fellow lieutenant worrisome.
"Pin down... under a beam.... can't move... hard to breathe... mask broken..." Severide murmured.
Without any hesitation, the Battalion Chief grabbed a mask after ordering his men not to step inside of that building just before running into it. The time he accessed the Lieutenant, this latter was barely conscious. With all his straight and with many trials, he pulled him out of under the beam before carrying him over his shoulders.
"Stay with me Kelly" he ordered to his man, hoping he was still conscious.
Outside of this building, he ran to his paramedics, spreading Severide on the stretcher before ripping off his broken mask, showing his bloody face.
"We got this" Charly tried to reassure her Chief.
She put her arm through the broken window of the destroyed Mustang reaching the fireman's neck, hoping to find a pulse. She let out a breath she didn't remember holding when she found a weak but steady pulse. Her firefighter training taking over everything, Charly went around the car, forcing the passenger's door before climbing into it.
"Kelly, can you hear me?" She asked, rubbing her fist against his sternum.
Only a small groan escaped his lips.
"I know you can hear me" She continued, trying to make him open his eyes. "This is me, Charly" She added, using her hands to stabilize his head.
"Charly?" He asked in a short breath, opening his blue eyes slowly.
"Yeah, it's me" She smiled. "Can you tell me where are you hurt?"
"I... I miss you so much" He began.
"Stay focus!" She shouted. "Can you tell me where are you hurt?"
"I... I can't feel anything" He mumbled, tired.
"Stay awake! Casey where is that damn ambo?" she yelled. "Look at me" she instructed the injured man, "you are not going to die today, not now that I'm back"
"I love you" he whispered, letting the sweet darkness took him away.
"Kelly!" she yelled, tears forming in her eyes.
The image of the accident kept turning in her mind again and again while he is wheeled in the ER, shirtless, a c-collar and a backboard preventing any more possible damage to his spine, a breathing mask on his face, electrodes on his chest and too much IV line in his arms.
"I can take you home if you want" Matthew said.
"No. I am not going anywhere. Damn... He looked so dead"
"But he is not thanks to you" He replied, or no yet, he thought. "I'm going to call the guys".
Half an hour later, all the firehouse were worrying in the waiting room of the Gaffney Chicago Medical Center, sending all their prayers to Severide.
"I'm reaching Charlotte Smith" A doctor said, stepping in.
"It's me!" She answered.
"You are registered as the emergency contact of Mister Kelly Severide" He explained. "I'm the Doctor Rhodes."
The brilliance of his badge made her understand that he was new, if not he would know Kelly personally and wouldn't call him Mister.
"After some CT scan and MRI, we have discovered a broken vertebra in his neck prior to the accident. The shock of the accident might be, add to his broken vertebra, the reason for his paralysis, but we will only know after the surgery" He said.
"Surgery?" She asked, completely lost. Paralysis?
"To fix his vertebra. If we are right then the paralysis will disappear. However, we need your consent."
"What's the risk?"
"Paralysis, coma, brain damages. But that's worth the shot."
"Do it." She accepted.
Nodding, the doctor ran out the emergency's waiting room, leaving them alone. Six hours later, while most of them, was asleep, he returned with some news.
"He went through the surgery but he's not out the woods yet. We have to put him in an induced coma..."
"Can we see him?" Matthew cut him.
"Yes but I have to warn you that he is intubated and in a pretty bad shape"
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I'm finally back on that story!
Hope you enjoy this chapter. Comment & Vote below.