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Sylvie was a wreck. After the night she’d had, she felt so defeated but also proud of herself. Yeah, she loved him, but she needed him to love her with all of his heart. She would not settle for less. And, in the bottom of her heart, she still felt grateful that Matt had been honest with her.
Early the next morning, after a night of some tears and the whole wine bottle, she sent a text message to Chief Boden asking him for a few days off, Her excuse was that maybe she indeed needed some counseling. Chief agreed but asked her for a little favor, he asked her if she could make some Thanksgiving dinner for the house, but no pressure if she didn’t want to, and he didn't even request a turkey. She accepted his request, thinking that maybe cooking was the only therapy she needed.
Matt hadn't tried to reach her, it was quite clear that he had broken her heart and, he had to admit, he had broken his own heart too. How he did not think about her feelings beyond him, how the whole Gabby situation hadn't crossed his mind since… well, that morning when he heard that voice mail.
On his way to Severide's place he understood, if anyone knew how much he had loved Gabby, that person was Sylvie. And then he remembered his own words of advice: “my money is on you finding exactly what you want, because that's what you deserve". And that night he didn't give her the exact answer she was looking for, but he gave her the only thing he could give her, the truth. When he encountered Severide before going to bed, with one look, Kelly knew things had not gone right for his friend, that look he had seen earlier was way worse now. He was about to offer a cigar talk but Matt had already locked his door.
Casey wasn't surprised when she didn't appear for the next shift. Since Stella hadn't used physical violence against him, he assumed Sylvie had not told her yet. He decided that he would keep things this way. When he entered his office, Kylie, the new girl that Stella had brought to work at 51, had already left him a huge stack of paperwork. On the top of the pile he saw Sylvie Brett's request for 2 shifts off for personal reasons - including PTSD counseling. That broke him once again, if anything had happened, he was sure she would rely on him to talk about it. But now, she needed to talk to a stranger, not that Dr. Charles was a complete stranger, but… it wasn't him and Dr. Charles didn't know her like he did.
He took out his phone and looked for her number. He was about to hit the call button when he remembered he had hurt her and, if she needed time and space, the only thing he could do was respect her wishes. He sat down to work but his mind kept bringing him back to that moment after hearing her question. It bothered him so much how she said that this was on her. Damn it, it was on both of them and he had even more guilt in not considering his past before letting his feelings for her take over, well, everything. No wonder Sylvie needed reassurance on the Dawson subject. If it was him in her place, he would not want to be just second best. He had felt like second best more than once during his marriage. But by this moment, he couldn't 100% confirm that he would say no to Gabby. Matt knew he wasn't going to leave everything, including Sylvie, to go to Puerto Rico, but he still didn't know what he would do if, in that moment, Gabby asked him to try, again, to make things work.
Everyone noticed that weird look on the captain's face, but knew better than to say anything. Kelly just asked Stella to keep an eye on him and not let him do anything stupid.
Matt gave them no reason to worry. He just kept on working., No reckless behaviour, just working, following the rules or breaking them without risking his life.
He missed Sylvie, wishing she were at the station, ignoring him rather than her not being there at all. He hadn't even realized how much he needed her presence, her eyes looking at him before entering a fire or seeing her breathe again, relieved when she could see he was safe at the end of a call. Does he have feelings for her? Of course. Could he name those feelings? Sadly, he couldn't.
Next shift, Sylvie still wasn't there, but on his desk, he found that Dr. Charles cleared her to come back to work next shift. Had she talked to him about their situation? Was he something she needed to talk to a counselor about? This was killing him.
Matt saw how Gallo and Mackey had decorated the lounge room with Thanksgiving decorations, and it was yet another reminder of how much he missed Sylvie. She was usually the one into holiday decorations. Last year she got some plastic flower bouquets for the lounge, so Mouch could not complain about his allergies. She just appeared in his office with that look on her face asking him, without words, if she could decorate his office. He’d just nodded and that had brought one of the sweetest smiles he had ever seen on her.
The youngsters tried, but no one could acheive the annoying level of perfection Sylvie always managed when decorating. How did he not appreciate those things before?
Every station in the district had agreed to be off shift for 2 hours so everyone had the chance to have some food as a family. Around mid day, Cindy Herrmann had brought a turkey and, of course, Gallo and Ritter were in charge of preparing it.
"Sure Brett would do a better job than us," Gallo said after pouring juice over the turkey once more. Casey, apparently, now had a radar for when someone was talking about her.
Gianna closed the oven door. "She called me earlier." Matt was surprised and a little jealous to know she was talking to someone, especially when that someone wasn’t him. "She's having a virtual Thanksgiving dinner with her family in Fowlerton, and she was making some kind of pasta."
"My girl," Stella said, looking at Casey. "I wish she was here".
Matt went back to his quarters and he started writing something. He never thought of himself as a writer, but somehow the words were flowing so much easier now that he was letting them out.
"Captain," a knock on the door interrupted him while he finished the letter and folded it up. "Dinner is ready," Gallo said.
The table was set and on each plate, everyone had a cookie with their name on it, well their last name, except from his cookie. His said "Matt", and immediately he knew Sylvie had made them. On one end of the table was Chief's place and on the other one was Mouch's. There was an empty space in which he noticed Severide's cookie.
"Please stay for dinner," Kelly said, standing in front of Shay's ambo door.
"I don't think so," Sylvie replied as she tucked her hair behind her ear.
"Is this because of Casey?"
Sylvie lowered her eyes
"He's been weird lately. First, he had this all worried look on this face but now it seems like he's mad at himself."
"I don't think…" Sylvie interrupted him.
"It is because of you?" he chuckled "I don't know what's going on between you two but you need to sort it out."
"I did." She smiled but at the same time her eyes watered a little. "Past is still too strong."
"Are you talking about Dawson?"
"You said it that day," she said as she touched Shay's name on the door, "I am aware of the shadow I'm stepping on."
Kelly took a deep breath. "We all have a past."
"But I was in the front row of this one and I can't help but compare it every little step."
"Don't you think that in that comparison, you could be the best option?"
Sylvie took a moment after looking how Severide looked into her eyes. Of course he was worried about Casey, but she could also tell how honest and worried about her he was. Actually she had not allowed herself to think that option. "Somehow I think I've never been the one to be chosen. And I need that, I just need someone to pick me first and to give me his all."
"Casey could do it…"
"That's the point… I don't think he could."
"I get it." Severide put his arm around her. "You shouldn't settle for anything less, and if you need a new best friend to talk to…" He pulled something from his pocket. "me and this little guy are here for you."
Sylvie laughed and cried at the same time while looking at a dusty dancing shark. "How?"
"I said it already, we all have a past and memories from that ambo."
Sylvie hugged him and he was surprised by the tightness of that hug. "I should have gone to Las Vegas with you."
"Don't you ever say that in front of Stella," he said with a childish smile. "So, are you coming? At least for the Chief making the toast?"
"Fine," she said, smirking. "Do I need to get cigars for every chat like this one?"
They were all sitting down when they entered the lounge. Stella and Gianna ran to hug her. Everyone was surprised when Matt awkwardly stood up but fought his need to run to hug her too so he sat down again.
Ritter pulled another chair for her and he was going to put it next to Casey but Sylvie chose to take his chair that was between Gallo and Tony. "Thanks, I'm just staying for the toast. I need to get online with my parents in half an hour."
"Then let's do this," the Chief said, smiling at her. "First of all, I want to thank everyone involved in this dinner, especially Brett for using her time off to cook for us." Matt was staring at her and smiled, of course she had cooked. "Then I want to thank God for allowing all of us to be here, with everything going on during this time. We have to be thankful to be safe and healthy. But we can't leave everything in God's hands. So I'm thankful to everyone of you guys for risking your health, your life, to help the people of Chicago. So don't do anything stupid so we can be together the next Thanksgiving."
"Casey?" Stella said jokingly, and everyone laughed except for him and Sylvie.
Then they all clinked their ginger ale filled glasses. Sylvie could feel Matt's eyes not leaving her so she looked at him and smiled, and he felt butterflies in his stomach and the ability to breathe again. Then she looked down again, as if she had had a flashback of that night and he knew it. She stood up. "It's time to go, I need to reheat my food for dinner with my family."
Matt jumped up from his chair again. "I'll walk you out."
Everyone was looking at her so she decided not to make a big deal out of it. 51 didn't need the drama. "Thanks, Casey." She turned to look at Kelly who winked at her.
Matt opened the door for her and walked her out. She tried to walk faster than him, but he kept up. When he heard her unlock her car door, he opened it for her. He was about to say something but she spoke first.
"Can we not make it weird? At least not here."
"I know you need space so…"
"Things are going to change but I just don't want everyone talking about it."
Matt could see how hard talking to him was for her. He hated being the one hurting her. Almost as if she could read his mind, she pulled her hand to his cheek. "You didn't do anything wrong." Great... she was fighting the need to cry again. "It's just that I need time to… you know."
"You didn't do anything wrong either," Matt said, looking into her eyes, and he pulled out a tightly folded paper from his jacket pocket. "Please read this whenever you feel ready and don't feel like you need to answer back."
"Okay," she said, taking the paper and entering her car, "have a nice dinner."
"You too, and please say hi to your parents from me."
"Will do."
_____
Sylvie turned off the camera after saying goodnight to her mom and took a deep breath, as if a happiness bubble had been burst and all her sadness came back after almost 3 hours of focusing on her family. It was better to have that virtual dinner than risking exposing them to the virus in any way.
She cleaned up the kitchen and looked at her couch. She hadn't had the nerve to sit back down since she got up after crying her eyes out. That was her new Mount Everest to climb and maybe she needed to do it. That couch was her favorite piece of furniture. She had gone antique shopping with Cindy Herrmann and the both of them had squeaked as soon as they saw it. Her life needed to go back to normal so she took a blanket and sat down. Good, first step was always the hardest. Of course memories came back but she had to get used to them.
Her phone buzzing interrupted her thoughts. She smiled when she saw how Stella had sent her a group photo from everyone: "Hope you remember us this way. Everyone died from a food overdose. That pasta *chef's kiss*. We all miss you." She couldn't help but search for Matt's face first. He was smiling but his eyes weren't. Now she knew what his eyes looked like when he was happy, or half happy… she dropped the phone, annoyed with herself about questioning everything.
Suddenly, she remembered the letter that Matt had given to her earlier. She took it out of her purse and hesitated to read it. He had told her to read it when she was ready. Ok, maybe just a few lines. If she didn't say anything to him, he didn't have to know. She took one sip of her glass of wine and started reading.
"Sylvie"
As soon as she read her name on it, she knew she’d have to accept she was going to listen to his voice in her head.
"I know things are difficult right now between us but after the day when, thanks to Gallo, I had to admit that I have feelings for you, I realized that a new door opened in our relationship. Yes, I do believe we have a relationship, one that neither of us was ready to accept but I must admit I'm thankful that it goes both ways.
But I don't want to talk about that now, as I said, things are complicated but I don't want to miss the opportunity, especially today on Thanksgiving, to thank you.
First of all, I want to thank you for our great friendship. Thank you for being there for me every time I needed you… even when I didn't realise I needed you then. I laugh now at the fact that I almost lost my mind after that time with the gun and you've been in that situation more than once and you remain cool as a cucumber, like Mackey said. You are so strong, Sylvie Brett, and you have shared that strength with me."
Sylvie laughed, he would never use an expression like that before. Gianna, her new partner, was getting into 51’s minds so fast.
"Also I want to thank you for letting me see your weakness. It's been an honor for me to be by your side during all your stories with Julie. Thanks for asking for my input and thank you for calling me first when you needed someone to feel safe. That made me feel so important, like I matter. You do the same for me, Sylvie, you make me feel safe."
She looked at Julie's picture on a shelf, next to her picture with baby Amelia. She could remember how he had been by her side every step on the way in her story with Julie. Almost every memory she had with her included him, especially because she made the decision of going forward thanks to him. No wonder Julie thought they were together… they were.
"And thank you for being important to me, I don't know how you did it, well you are amazing in everything you do and I knew that long before but I never realized how amazing you are for me. You listen to me, you always say the words I need to hear, even when I don't like them. You push me in the right direction without even noticing it. God, you have made me smile so much with just one look. And by that you made me want to make you as happy as you make me.
What I'm really trying to say is that the thing I'm most thankful for is… you being you, and you being there for me, and you letting me be there for you. When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. Because I noticed you are my biggest one. I can honestly say I'm blessed to have you in my life. And I don't know what's going to happen between us, but to me, you are my blessing.
Love. Matt Casey.”
Sylvie was in tears before she finished the letter. She read it two times more before reaching for her phone.
____
"Hey Captain,"Gallo said from the door in his quarters. It was almost midnight, they came back from a small call. Almost every call involved burnt turkeys, candles overloads or kids stuck in weird places. "Do you want some of Brett's pumpkin pie? She told us to ask you first before cutting it"
Matt smiled, even if she was angry with him, she knew he liked pumpkin pie with a hot cup of coffee. "Sure," he said, standing from his bed. "I'll be right there".
Suddenly his phone buzzed, he unlocked it and read. "Read this in the most terrible Australian accent you could imagine. Okay?"
Matt laughed hard, he couldn't help it and he knew she had read the letter.
"Happy Thanksgiving, mate. I'm thankful for you too. You've made my life better in so many ways. You are the best Matt Casey and, beside baby Amelia, you are the biggest blessing in my life. Love, Sylvie."
Matt felt like he could breathe again and texted back, "Good night, mate"
"Guess someone is in a better mood," Gianna whispered to Ritter next to her when they saw Casey sitting and started to eat his pie with a huge smile on his face.