Questions And Answers...

This..

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.