Something's gotta give

The scars

3 month time jump-

It has been a week since Gabby's plane landed back in Chicago and no one has heard from her, everyone is worried.
"Why isn't she back here yet?" Brett asks Boden impatiently.
"I don't know, the board has tried to contact her but they didn't get anything back. They even tried to contact Antonio but he's undercover at the moment." Boden replies softly.
"So no one has spoken to her since she got back?" Severide interrupts.
"I don't know that either however I do know where she's staying, get the guys and go and find her." Boden commands walking over to his desk to write an address and hands them the piece of paper.

When everyone gets to Dawson's apartment they see that the door is open. They walk in and it's a mess everywhere. Old food containers are stacked up on the kitchen counter, clothes are completely covering the floor and other furniture and magazines featuring the latest Kardashian/Jenner drama are stranded on the couch and dresser.
"What the hell happened?" Mouch asks while picking up a piece of broken glass.
"We need to find Dawson" Herrman replies with a worried look on his face.
Everyone nods and leaves Dawson's apartment. They look everywhere they think she might be including Med to see if she has been checked in for any injuries but no luck. They agree to look for her again after the next shift.

The next day, everyone shows up to the firehouse for work only to see something that they least expected. Dawson was in the break room cooking lunch.
"Hey guys!" She smiles acting like nothing has happened. "Are grilled chicken wraps okay today, we need to buy more stuff"
Everyone looks confused apart from Mouch who is already digging into the food. "This is amazing" he says.
"Uh, Dawson, where have you been for the past week?" Sylvie says walking up to her while everyone else wearily sits down.
"Around" Dawson answers quickly not looking up from washing the dishes.
"Hey, you can talk to me, we went by your place yesterday and it was trashed. Did anything happen in Afghanistan?" She says while placing a hand on Gabby's shoulder causing her to jump and drop a pan on the floor. Severide and Casey jump up and speed over to help her.
"Dawson are you okay?" Casey asks worried.
"I'm fine!" Gabby yells picking up the pan placing it on the side of the sink and storms out.
This is when everyone knows that Dawson wasn't fine, she was far from it. Casey, Severide and Brett immediately go to chief Boden's office and inform him about their thoughts.
"Yes, I've noticed a change in her behaviour today. Get everyone to keep an eye on her, chief Hatchet has told me that she refused counselling and so maybe that's why she is acting differently." Boden answered.

Later, Severide enters the shower room only to see Dawson already there in just her bra and jeans trying to look at her back in the mirror. It is covered in scars presumably from knives. He also sees a still healing bullet wound on her left shoulder and chain marks around her wrists. "That's probably why she never took her jacket off" he thinks to himself. Dawson notices Severide staring and quickly puts her top back on glaring at him.
"What are you doing here!?" Dawson yells more scared than angry.
"I was going to take a shower" Severide hesitates, "what happened to you?"
"Nothing, you didn't see anything okay!" Gabby says trying to leave but Severide grabs her arm and pulls her close. He can smell her vanilla body lotion and he just wants to kiss all of her wounds better but he can't. Not right now.
"What happened?" He asks again, more serious this time.
"Just leave it okay?" She says while releasing her arm from his grip and quickly leaves the room leaving a shocked Severide.

Severide finds Brett and Casey by the Ambo and leads them towards Boden's office without giving them a reason why.
"What can I help you guys with?" Boden asks.
"I want to know the same thing." Casey says giving a weird look to Severide.
"Um, you guys might want to sit down before I tell you this." Severide advises.
Brett and Casey sit down on Boden's office couch confused.
"Well I Uh, I went in the shower room but Dawson was still inside getting changed and well..." Severide pauses to clear his throat and carries on. "She had dozens of scars on her back" he finally says.
As soon as Severide says this, everything that's been bottled up in Casey's mind finally explodes and he starts to cry. Brett felt like someone had just punched her in the stomach she couldn't breathe. Dawson, her best friend, had been through hell and she wasn't there for her.

End of chapter-
Authors notes: hi guys I hope you liked this chapter I'm sorry it took so long to update I was on holiday and I just got back. Feel free to comment anything and say if/how to improve. Thanks for reading :)