The Fire Girl: A One Chicago Fanfiction

Chapter 42

Squad 3, Engine 51, Truck 81, Ambulance 61. Car accident 48th and Walbash.

With that, we were off. When we reached the scene it was clearly a street race gone wrong. Casey and Severide were attempting to free the victim from the car when Matt yelled out.

"Everybody back up! We've got Nos here!"

They continued and pulled the guy out just as the front of the bar blew up. All three men were thrown to the ground before Engine 51 rushed to put out the flames. Sylvie and I rushed over to attend to the victim as the guys stood up, claiming they were fine. We got the victim loaded into the ambulance before taking them to med.

Back at the firehouse I noticed Kelly kept touching his shoulder and messing with it. He wasn't doing that before the  call. But when I confronted him about it, he claimed it was fine, he just tweaked it. So I waited. A couple calls later he headed into the bathroom for a shower. I waited a couple minutes before following into the bathroom, and pulling his shower curtain to the side.

"I knew it!"

"Corin?! The hell are you doing?" he exclaimed, turning to face me, so I could no longer see his back.

"You were being weird about your shoulder, and I knew something was up. You have a dark bruise forming where you fell on it and the coloration makes it seem pretty deep."

"It's just a bruise, I'm fine."

"Fine. Then you wouldn't mind letting me examine it when you're done in there."

"Fine."

So I waited a couple minutes until he emerged with a towel wrapped around his waist and another one he was uses to dry his hair. With an annoyed sigh, he sat down on the bench beside me, turning so his back was to me. I began examine it, pressing for pain points and paying attention to his reactions.

"Kelly that's a deep tissue bruise, but I'm pretty sure there's something more going on under it. It shouldn't hurt you as badly as it is. You need to get it checked out."

"I'll call them while doing paperwork, in the mean time...can you give me any meds?"

"Kelly, I can get in trouble for using this and not writing a report."

"It's fine, I can try and deal with it."

"Bullshit," I sighed, pulling the needle and vile out of my pocket, having already grabbed it already and injected it into him.

"Thank you."

"If this ever comes up, the vile was stolen."

By  the end of shift he still hadn't called, so I decided to take control of the situation. I didn't risk my job and potentially more for him not to do the one thing I asked of him. So as we headed home from shift, I decided to tell him.

"I called and got you an appointment with a friend at Med tomorrow to get that checked out," I informed him to which he looked panicked.

"Corin, why? If there's something wrong or not those go on our records and if its something more and I can't do my job I-"

"It's an off the record appointment. That's why it's a friend at Med. April helped me. So we're going, tomorrow after my ultrasound appointment."

"Okay. Thank you."

******

I had my 6 month check up before Kelly's appointment. We got to see our baby girl and she was growing at a healthy rate. Everything was basically perfect. The doctor just told me to watch my stress level, since my blood pressure was a bit high. I obviously knew the reason why, but I couldn't share that.

At his appointment they did an examination of Kelly's shoulder along with an x-ray  to try to decide the cause of the pain. Kelly sat on the table, shirtless, as we waited for the doctor to come back.

"It could be nothing," Kelly spoke, fiddling with his shirt.

"Or it could be something. You're in quite a bit of pain Kelly and that typically means something's wrong. I mean I hope your right, but I'm nervous."

Just as he went to speak, the doctor came back in with the x-ray in hand. He put it onto the light and I looked at it, no fully able to read it, but I knew something wasn't right by the doctor's silence.

"So how's it look doc?" Kelly asked.

"You have a small fracture in your spine. Honestly, you're lucky to be feeling pain at all," he spoke.

"What do we do to fix it?" I spoked, grabbing and squeezing Kelly's free hand.

"There's a surgery we can do that takes the pressure off the nerve, but it would take Kelly out of work for at least a year, possibly even longer and has a recovery period of about 6 months."

"And what happens if I don't get the surgery?" Kelly asked.

"Without the surgery you'll continue to be in pain and you can expect a deterioration of many of your motor skills which would also take you out of work."

"Okay," he breathed out, giving my hand a squeeze back.

"You guys need to get an on the record diagnoses and I've got another doctor I can refer you to who's avialbnle now if you'd like to just take care of it all in one day."

I looked over at Kelly who nodded before I spoke, "We'll do that then."

"I'll contact her and have her come in here. I'm sorry I didn't have better news."

With the second doctor, there were tons more tests done. Kelly went through different machines and other tests to determine the exact area and size of the spinal fracture. While we waited, I sat rubbing my belly, praying for good news. I know being off the job for that long would kill Kelly, but he couldn't keep living like this either. When the doctor came back in, Kelly reached for my hand and toyed with my fingers. He was anxious and I hadn't seen him this anxious since the twins were born.

"Alright Mr. Severide. Our tests show that the spinal fracture is worse that we originally thought and you definitely need surgery."

"What's the recovery time on that?" Kelly asked.

"Recovery from this type of surgery is a year at best. To be completely honest with you, I've never seen someone go back to full duty after an injury that needs surgery like this," she explained, "You should probably get comfortable with the idea of an administrative position."

Kelly didn't speak, it was almost like we was frozen, so I took over, "Uh thanks doc. Can we have a few days to talk it over?"

"Of course. In the meantime I'm going to prescribe some pain meds for him to take. When you're ready, you can call the office to schedule the surgery. I'm sorry it wasn't better news."

"Thank you."

We left the doctor's, picking up his meds on the way out. I drove, so he wouldn't be aggravating his arm. As I drove him Kelly was still silent. This was big and I knew Kelly was struggling.

"Babe, I'm sorry it wasn't better news. I-"

"I can't imagine my life not being a firefighter. I just don't want to talk about this right now. I need time."

"Okay. Just know, I'm here and I love you."

"I love you too."