Whole Lotta Love - Reb_Yell (2024)

Chapter 1: Fourth of July in Fowlerton

Chapter Text

“Are you sure your parents are okay with this?”
“They invited us.” Sylvie replied, rolling her eyes. He’d been asking that same question for two days straight. Given they were already in Indiana and on their way to Fowlerton, it was getting silly and slightly annoying.

“Did they invite us or did they invite you?”
“When you put this ring on my finger I became ‘us’.”
“Seriously, Sylvie, your mother hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She doesn’t believe in hating anyone, ever.”
“Okay, she severely dislikes me and would prefer to never see me again.”

“You’re so dramatic. Has anyone ever told you that you’re dramatic?”
“I’m not dramatic. Don’t blow this off, Sylvie. The naked pictures scandal was bad enough, but now she’s pissed about the wedding. Maybe I should’ve stayed home and let you-“
“We’re a set now, Matt. Mom knows that.”
“You’re still dancing around the fact that she doesn’t like me, and she probably doesn’t want me in her house. She can’t even look at me on Facetime, Sylvie.”
“She has to get over it. She and I have talked about it.” Sylvie had been very clear, she was marrying Matt come Hell or high-water, and Mom could either put up or shut up about it. Mom at least seemed less anti-Matt now that they were formally engaged. She had to admit, “the naked pictures thing is still going to be awkward. Some people in Fowlerton saw them, back in the Facebook versions thank God, when it was just…there was none of the deepfakes with actual sex involved and women who clearly weren’t me.”
“Some men, too.” Matt added. “Don’t forget that. Just what I want my future in-laws to see.”
“Well, they haven’t seen them. But Mom is kind of awkward about having seen your penis, yes. She can’t help that. She’ll get used to you, and eventually, the images of you naked will be replaced by normal mental images of you, as you are normally. I mean, with clothes on. Not that you naked isn’t normal, it’s just only how I prefer to picture you normally.”
“You think about me naked a lot?”
“Mm-hmm. At least a few times a day.” Sylvie glanced at him, smiling. “Don’t think it, Matt, I am driving and we are not pulling over just so we can make out like teenagers because you’re a horn-dog.”
“I’m a horn-dog?” Matt protested, fake innocence dripping from his tone. “I’m not the one who pictures his fiancé naked several times a day.”
“You don’t?”
“No, I don’t.” He paused, sounding very superior. Then he caved, “Sometimes, mentally, we’re having sex and we’re not naked. I’ve got a really nice fantasy of you and me in the cab of 81 that’s probably never going to come true, but it’s a nice visual.”
“In the cab of 81? Really? That gets you hot?”
“In my defense, I love you, and I love 81. So, yeah. I’m not planning to try it, don’t worry.”
“I am sorry, baby, but nothing about your fire truck makes me want to have sex with you. And your turnout gear smells like old sweat, smoke, fire, and random carcinogens from fires.”
“Ouch.”
“Now, you in your dress blues…” Sylvie glanced away from the road again, shooting him a look that let him know she was pretty serious about this one, “one of these days, I am going to f*ck you in that uniform. With the hat on. But for now, we are going to my parents, aka the Land of No Sex tonight. So just stop…giving me ideas.”

She had seen Matt Casey in a lot of different kinds of situations and in a lot of different kinds of moods. She’d seen him completely calm in the face of terrifying fires, seen him keep it together when he’d been shot and shot at, seen him heartbroken and scared when Gabby was in the ICU and they’d lost the baby, seen him depressed, lonely, and terribly hurt when Gabby left, seen him laugh so hard he nearly puked, seen him confident, proud, ashamed…surely she’d seen all of it by now. As they pulled into her parents’ drive, he looked scared and nervous. Sylvie put the car in park, and grabbed his hand.
“It’s going to be fine, Matt. I promise.”
“Yeah.” He nodded, clearly looking like he was trying to believe her. “Leo and Allison aren’t coming, right?”
“No, her family reunion overlaps, they’re up at the Dunes.” Sylvie explained again. “On the up side, you get to have a bed this time, since Allison isn’t in the guest room.”

“Even engaged we can’t share?” He looked baffled.

“Not married, not yet.” Sylvie shrugged. “Mom is old-fashioned. By the time we visit again, we’ll be officially married, so it won’t matter anymore. Now, come on, before Mom thinks we’re scared to go inside.”
At that moment, Mom stepped out onto the front porch, waving at them. She looked like she’d been baking, but that wasn’t unusual. The county fair was still wonderfully old-fashioned, and Mom had probably made lots of things for the bake sales and the baking contests. There’d be an Angel Food, and a Devil’s Food for the cakes, maybe pineapple upside down for good measure, plus an apple pie, a cherry pie, a strawberry pie, and a lemonade pie. Some cookies of whatever ilk Mom picked. Possibly brownies, though Sylvie kind of hoped not, not wanting Mom to accidentally stumble into Matt’s love affair with Cindy Herrmann, or at least Cindy’s brownies.

“Come on, we’ve got a lunch to eat, then it’s off to the fair probably. Fireworks are tonight.” Sylvie got out of the car, and Matt did the same on the passenger side.

“I’ve never been to a ‘fair’. I mean, besides a career fair in high school.”
“You’ve been to the Taste of Chicago. That’s kind of close. Only the food is not fried as much. Hi, Mom!”

“Sylvie, welcome home, sweetheart.” Mom enveloped her in a huge hug, and kissed her cheek, then of course, she grabbed Sylvie’s left hand and pulled it up. “It’s beautiful. Congratulations, Sylvie.”

“Hi, Mrs. Brett.” Matt smiled, carrying both their bags as he followed Sylvie up onto the porch.

“Matthew.” Sylvie sort of winced, knowing Matt hated being called by his formal name. She’d figured out why after spending a couple evenings with Nancy – she called him Matthew but there was always something in her tone, something possessive, something a little uncomfortable.

“When do we need to leave for the fairgrounds?” Sylvie asked, as Mom led them into the house.

“Oh, about an hour. Some things are still cooling, and your dad is out grilling burgers for lunch.”

“Matt, why don’t you take our stuff up to the bedrooms? You remember which one is mine and which one is the guest room?” Sylvie encouraged, and Matt nodded.

“Yeah, I remember.” As soon as he was upstairs, and she knew she only had a couple minutes before he came back down, Sylvie pretty much rounded on Mom.

“Mom, don’t call him ‘Matthew’ like that, he did nothing wrong, and his name is Matt.”
“I’m sure his name is actually Matthew.”
“He doesn’t like it, it makes him uncomfortable, and this is uncomfortable enough, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure that isn’t my fault.”
“It’s not his fault either. Come on, Mom. I know it’s awkward, because of those awful pictures, but he was the victim. And imagine if Grandma, no what about Pop, had been sent naked pictures of you when you were dating Dad. How would you feel? Knowing Pop had seen you in the shower?”
“Sylvie, are you sure about-“
“Matt? Yes, absolutely. Am I sure Hope passed on the nastiest rumors she could? Yes, absolutely. Please, just, think about how you’d feel having to see your in-laws again after that.”
“I know he must be mortified.” Mom admitted. “I just can’t help…I’ll try, Sylvie.”
“Thank you.”
“Sylvie, where’s that guy of yours?” Dad shouted, Mom must’ve just closed the screen to the back porch where Dad was grilling. “Have him bring me out a plate, these are just about done.”
“I heard him.” Matt passed behind her, kissing her cheek. “Mrs. Brett, I’m afraid I don’t have a clue where you keep the plates.”
“He wants one of the largest sized plates in that last cabinet closest to the refrigerator, Matt.”
“Thank you.” Matt followed directions spectacularly, unsurprisingly, and had soon enough popped out onto the back porch with Dad.

“Your father likes him.” Mom filled her in, as if Sylvie didn’t already know that. “He liked him after you showed us the house, but now that he’s proposed, well, your father has been telling everyone about his future son-in-law the firefighter. He’s very proud.”
“Matt’s a great guy. I’m proud, too.” Sylvie grinned. “You know you liked him, too, Mom. You’re just worried about what Hope said. Hope lied, or passed on rumors without knowing better. I know it might be a little awkward if we run into other people who’ve seen those pictures, but they’ve been down for half a year, I’m sure the furor has mostly died down.”
“Sylvie…I don’t know if it was Hope, or someone else, but someone went digging.”
“Digging into what?” Please not the deepfake pictures, please not anything like that, please don’t let Matt have to deal with that on this trip. That was all supposed to be over, finally. Well, except for the lawsuit against Terry Anderson and Janet Gayan which hadn’t even been filed because Matt’s lawyer was playing games with their lawyers (Matt’s words).

“The mess with his parents hit the rumor mill a few weeks ago. Some people think he’s…well, that he might be very like his father or worse his mother, you know, violent. So if they say something to you, I’m sorry, I never said anything.”
“God, like Matt needs that brought up again.”
“Well, half the ladies at church will coo over him. They think it’s just horribly tragic and sad, and will probably try to feed him far too many baked goods.”
“I’m not sure that won’t embarrass him just as badly.” Sylvie had to laugh though. God, that was so Fowlerton. Everything was based on what you’d heard about their parents or childhood or third cousin once removed. Nothing was ever really forgotten. One of the things she liked about Chicago, there was a lot more chances for relative anonymity.

“Sylvie, uh, is there any-“ Matt came back in, carrying the loaded plate full of burgers, and she couldn’t help another round of light laughter.

“I’ll cut some onion if Mom hasn’t but no, no one made bacon for you to put on your burgers. How are you this skinny with how much bacon you eat?”
“I’m not skinny.”
“Your body-fat percentage last check was single-digits, Matt. That’s skinny.”

“Nope, that’s lean.” Matt shot back, kissing her softly as she slipped past him. “And if you had to carry sixty pounds of gear on every call, you’d burn off the bacon too.”

Chapter 2: Fourth of July in Fowlerton, Part II

Chapter Text

They all piled into Dad’s truck for the trip to the fairgrounds, no point in trying to park two vehicles on the busiest day. Sylvie had tried to brace Matt for the reality of a relatively rural county fair, but she knew he wasn’t really sure what to expect. He was such a city boy, and she loved him that way. He and Dad were getting along like houses afire, as Mom said, discussing the upcoming football season and Matt was even listening (and asking good questions) about the farm, and commodity markets, and corn futures. It also made Sylvie feel a little better that Matt was the one lifting their loaded cooler into the truck and doing all the lifting and shifting of even moderately heavy items. Dad wasn’t as young as he used to be, and Dad was pretty gracious about letting Matt take over that stuff, maybe because he was still the one giving orders. Maybe just because having a guy who basically carried heavy things for a living do it didn’t feel the same as letting his wife or daughter do it.

Matt toted all the stuff in so Dad could take up his usual spot as the master griller of all things meat for the church food stand. Sylvie and Mom took the pile of baked goods, though that took two trips while the boys set up the grill and everything. Matt’s face when some of the neighbors stopped by to offer them red-white-and-blue Trump 2020 gear had forced Sylvie to bite down hard on her lip. Thank God, Dad turned them down – her parents might be conservative, but they disliked Donald Trump (she hadn’t dared ask about 2016 voting, they had hated Hillary Clinton with a passion, too, and all things Bernie Sanders were ‘Communist plots’ or something) – so Matt didn’t have to decide between offending his future in-laws by refusing and, well, his feelings about national politics. Mom had taken one look at Matt’s face, though, and leaned in to whisper as they started back towards the truck, “he’s a Democrat, isn’t he?”

“He even held office – he was a Democratic alderman.” Sylvie admitted with a shrug, also at a near-whisper.

“He doesn’t want to socialize everything does he?”
“No, Mom.” Sylvie carefully bit back laughter at the assumption.
“But he supports abortion then?”
“He doesn’t support it, like he thinks everyone should have one.” She tried to think of a Mom-and-Dad-friendly way to spin Matt’s political opinions without lying. She struck on what she was pretty sure was gold. “He just thinks the government should stay out of our lives and decisions as much as possible.”
“Oh, well.” Mom nodded in approval. “Your dad will like that, then.”

By the time they got back with the second round of baked goods from the truck, Matt was clearly settling in well – he was putting together the rest of the tent and tables for the church’s food stand. The fair had been open for lunch, but the church never set up until the early afternoon for some reason. Lots of groups did it that way, probably because the fairgrounds didn’t really start to fill up until much closer to dusk and the subsequent fireworks. Sylvie also didn’t miss the way that more than a few of the women nearby discretely kept an eye on Matt – that t-shirt did rather little to hide the play of muscle as he worked or really just moved. She really should tell him to stop putting his t-shirts in the dryer, but she liked those slightly-shrunken shirts herself.

“Sylvie, dear, congratulations!” Mrs. Pruitt led a gaggle of her mother’s church lady friends that suddenly gathered around, all wanting to see her ring and ask about the upcoming wedding. The ring was oohed and aahed over, and then of course, they all had to be introduced (some of them again) to Matt, who looked like he might run for the hills right then. Fire he could handle, a gaggle of church ladies making small talk intimidated him.
“Matt!” Dad yelled, and Matt turned obediently. “I left my sunglasses out in the truck, son, you mind taking your younger legs out there and getting ‘em for me?”

“No, sir, not at all.”
“You’ll need the keys.” Sylvie was just about to volunteer to go with him, since she had the keys from their trip for the cakes, but Mom grabbed her wrist.

“Sylvie, stay here and help us get set up. He’ll be right back.”
“I’m not going to get lost, Syl.” Matt grinned at her, taking the keys and heading back towards the parking lot. Sylvie leaned down to kiss Dad’s cheek as the church ladies moved over to the next ‘stand’ which was the church’s baked goods sale.

Taking Matt around the fair was incredibly fun. The livestock barns were hilarious, mostly because Matt was nervous around every single new type of animal for at least ten minutes. Horses he was almost okay with, apparently he’d learned a little something back in May at Starved Rock, but anything that wasn’t a baby animal made him nervous. She had literally seen this man get shot at with less visible reaction than he had around the penned animals. He was curious, though, and in his typical way listened closely, caring about what anyone told him, willing to learn, but she knew he was never going to be anything other than a city boy. It was also fun to show him off when she ran into people she knew. Sylvie Brett had scored a hot firefighter and yep, she was bragging about it. Petty? Yes. Enjoyable? Completely. It turned out that Matt also liked to ride carnival rides, which probably shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. He had no apparent fear of heights, for sure. She didn’t really like the rides that went upside down, but rode them because he asked and there was something nice about the way he pulled her into his side and kept his arm around her shoulders after they were done and she was slightly shaken from it. She loved some of the other rides, though, the spinning ones, and they rode those for a while. They walked around the games, Matt explaining how half of them were basically rigged, but at least they were amusing to watch people attempt. Unsurprisingly, he easily won the sledge hammer ‘strong man’ thing where you hit it and tried to ring the bell. No one, including the carnival worker, seemed all that shocked that the guy with his CFD t-shirt and clearly still in good shape knew how to manage what Herrmann called one of the ‘tools of ignorance’ (sledge, axe, halligan). His skill at the rope ladder was impressive, though – Matt said it was all about keeping your center of mass completely over the midline but she wasn’t going to try it. She did take a picture though, meaning to post it to Instagram, but remembered Matt had asked not to be seen in any social media posts for a while (he’d been fine with being mentioned), so instead she just texted it to Kelly and Stella. Stella had been impressed, Kelly had sent back just the word “showoff” which she was pretty sure was kind of a compliment between them. So they went back to the church food stand for dinner with some nice-sized stuffed animals Matt had won, laughing about everything and nothing. It was a wonderful summer afternoon.

There wasn’t really dinner at the fair, it was just eating from whichever stand had whatever bit of thing you wanted. Matt, who had introduced her to Ethiopian food, Moroccan food, Senegalese food (apparently, Hallie had loved African food, and Sylvie was hardly going to be jealous of a fiancée who’d died more than seven years ago now), and real Szechuan food in the time they’d known each other, had apparently never eaten much fair food. He had been excited to find a stand that did really spectacular pork tenderloin sandwiches, but after that, he’d been appalled at breaded and fried broccoli, followed by one selling fried Coca Cola, and several other items that apparently her city boy had never heard of (the fried Twinkie place was new, Sylvie didn’t remember that from when she was a kid). They ate burgers of course at the church stand. They grazed through the evening, but spent most of the time at the church stands with her parents and her parents’ friends. Sylvie just felt like she didn’t come home often enough and she wanted her parents to get to know Matt better. Matt was also busily trying out pretty much every baked good that had been brought to the stand (at this point, Matt Casey might be the biggest donor to the church relief fund – if you added in that gingerbread candy factory from Christmas). If that also meant Sylvie had to deal with a few hours of subtle and not-so-subtle hints that she really ought to have her wedding at home in their (Methodist) church, so what. She could withstand the pressure. She was getting married in Chicago because her life and Matt’s life and their life together were all in Chicago. She was getting married in a Catholic church because Matt had asked and because she found something majestic and beautiful in both Catholic architecture (at least in Chicago’s churches) and in the ceremony. She could also put up with the Pruitt women staring at Matt, especially his butt anytime they could. Matt was oblivious, otherwise she’d have to do something – he would be very uncomfortable with it. But he was deeply involved in a conversation about the new house over with the guys – something about the process of salvaging and replacing the 120-year-old wood flooring into their living room and hall from what Sylvie could catch – so she turned her attention back to her mother and the other women.

“I worry about you, dear.” Mrs. Davies had to be 80 years old, and Sylvie had known her pretty much her entire life.

“Worry about me? Why?”
“Chicago sounds so dangerous on the television. All those shootings and things.”
“Our new house is in a very safe neighborhood. Parts of the city are dangerous sometimes, but it’s really not as bad as it probably sounds.” Sylvie reassured her.

“You should be more worried about who’s living with her, Shirley.” Mrs. Franklin shook her head.

“Matt? He seems like a lovely young man. And a firefighter.”

“Firefighters and police aren’t all good men. His family has a history, a violent history.” Mrs. Franklin informed her, sounding a little gleeful, and Sylvie couldn’t help sighing and closing her eyes for just a second. She might as well let it get out there, and deal with it openly. “You can find it in the newspapers, Shirley, it’s all online these days. His father abused his mother, she left him, but apparently, there was some sort of fight, and Matt gave his mother his key to his father’s house and she shot him to death. Admitted it all in court. He was sent to a reformatory or something, because he was a minor – should’ve been prison for planning a murder, of his father no less.”
“Matt did not give his mother a key.” Sylvie started with the most important part. “He was barely sixteen, going between his parents’ houses for split custody, practically every other night back and forth, and being sixteen, he accidentally left his keys on the counter at his mother’s house. She took his key, he didn’t give it to her. He didn’t plan anything.”
“But she did murder his father?”
“Yes, she did.” Sylvie admitted. “Matt ended up in foster care for more than two years to finish high school, not a ‘reformatory’ and if you’re implying, Mrs. Franklin, that Matt would ever hit me – or any woman – or that I would tolerate that sort of behavior, well, you’re dead wrong and you don’t know me very well.”

“Well said.” Mom backed her up. “Matt is a decorated captain in the Chicago Fire Department. He’s won quite a few medals and awards, you can find that on the internet, too, Betty. He has an impeccable reputation for bravery, valor, and integrity.”
“He’s been married before. Apparently he doesn’t have an impeccable reputation as a husband.” Mrs. Franklin tried again. “I heard she ran away to a foreign country to escape him.”

“His ex-wife is in Puerto Rico doing humanitarian relief work.” Sylvie corrected, really wishing Hope was around so she could slap her. Or at least yell at her. “Yes, he was married, but it ended because they wanted different things, that’s all. Matt wants to settle and raise a family, she preferred…well, relief work in disaster areas.”

“Well, that’s hardly unusual these days, divorcing.” Mrs. Davies chuckled a little. “Your son Donald has been married three times, Betty, and Janie Decker’s daughter Ladawn has been married, oh, isn’t it four times now, and she’s only a few years older than Sylvie here. He seems lovely, truly, Sylvie dear. And quite nice to look at you, you know.”

“I might have noticed that.” Sylvie laughed lightly. “You should see him in his dress blues. Oh, in fact, I have a picture, his official picture.” She pulled it up on her phone, and passed it around.

“Well, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.” Mrs. Pruitt laughed lightly.

“You should see the other photos of him – Hope has those-“
“Those were taken without his consent or knowledge and are literally part of a felony criminal case right now.” Sylvie bit out, not bothering to stay polite any longer. She’d never really liked Betty Franklin, or her kids, and she certainly didn’t right now. Offense was always the best defense, and while she might not care about most Fowlerton gossip, this she wanted to nip in the bud as much as she could. “There were small cameras installed – illegally – in the showers and men’s locker room at the fire station he was working at temporarily. The photos ended up online, also illegally. Many of them are faked, his face on another body. The woman involved even took pictures of him in a hospital bed, where he was unconscious after being injured at work, trying to save someone’s life. She is facing felony charges for that. Matt did nothing wrong. All he did was trust that none of his coworkers would put cameras in shower areas. That’s all.”
“Well.” Helen Bishop was nearly 90 or 90, she’d been the senior-ranking church lady as long as Sylvie could remember, and her word was pretty much law in most of Fowlerton’s female circles. It helped that the Bishops owned half the township. “I can’t imagine any Christian woman passing along anything like that, then. Imagine. Taking advantage of someone that way. In a hospital bed, even. This internet, technology, it allows some horrible things these days.”

They could’ve sat in the grandstands for the fireworks, but they’d always opted for lawn chairs at the truck. This time, though, Mom and Dad were in lawn chairs, but Sylvie and Matt were laying in the bed of the truck, looking up at the night sky. It was Matt’s idea, and the tailgate being down kept there from being anything ‘untoward’ even suspected while she also got to enjoy being essentially in Matt’s arms while they waited for the fireworks to begin. She knew that the county fireworks was going to be nothing compared to the usual display in Chicago, but that wasn’t the point. This was her, bringing Matt home to show off and to bring him into her life-before-Matt. He’d known her pretty much since she’d moved to Chicago, but this part of Sylvie he didn’t know. She wanted him to know the country-girl parts as well as the newer city-girl parts.

“Your mother promised to show me your baby pictures tomorrow.” Matt teased her gently.

“Luckily I was an adorable baby.” Sylvie smiled at him. “But you can skip fifth through eighth grades, I was so awkward.”
“I never got to that point with anyone’s mother before. Showing baby pictures off.”

“Really?”
“Hallie’s mother tolerated me, both her parents did, but they were always so careful around me, like I was going to flip out if they actually brought up my family.” Matt tried a small smile, but it failed. “Hallie was so protective of me.”
“She loved you. I completely understand. If I could, I’d never let anything hurt you, Matt. Just because we’re girls, we’re not that different from you.”
“I saw a few pictures of Gabby when she was young, but it was never an official sit down and look at the albums thing. I’m looking forward to it.” Matt kissed her softly. “I think it means your mom likes me again.”
“I told you, she just needed time. She needs to see you as Matt, not as…”
“Not as the guy with the naked pictures up on Facebook, yeah.”
“Dad loves you. He’s been bragging to all his friends apparently about his firefighter son-in-law.” Sylvie paused, and then tickled his sides lightly. He wasn’t particularly ticklish, but it was still fun to tease him a little. “I bet if I call Nancy, she has baby pictures of you.”
“If she does, I haven’t seen any.” Matt shook his head. “Christie might have kept some things, from Dad’s house. I can contact some of the extended family, they might have some group pictures I’m in. I don’t think Mom kept much. She, uh, destroyed a lot during the divorce. She’d get angry and destroy things that reminded her of Dad.”

“Well, I am going to have to play detective, but I will find adorable childhood pictures of you. You had to be the cutest little boy. All fluffy blond hair and big blue eyes.”
“I want you to meet Aintin Jo.” Matt announced, rather suddenly.

“Okay.”
“I want to invite her, to the wedding, and it’d be better if you met her before the wedding day.”
“Is her approval important or something?”
“Oh, I’m marrying you no matter who approves or disapproves.” Matt kissed her soundly. “I just want you to know some of where I come from. You’ve met Mom, and you can’t meet Dad obviously, but Aintin Jo is an important part of who I am. So, if you’re up for it, there’s a barbecue at her place next month, I’d like us to go.”

“I would love to meet her.”

Conversation cut off at that point, as the first of the fireworks went off. She was content to cuddle into Matt’s warmth (even in July it could get a little chilly after dark) and watch the show of colors. Tomorrow after lunch they were headed back into the city, but at least, it seemed, Mom was coming around on Matt and that was the most important thing. If she’d also gotten to (hopefully) shut up some of Hope’s gossiping, even better.

Chapter 3: "I'm Fine"

Chapter Text

It was not particularly unusual to go a few hours in a shift and not see Matt. He had a lot of paperwork as captain for the shift and in charge of all of 81’s maintenance schedules and upkeep (first shift operated without a captain currently and the captain on third shift was on Engine). Personnel requests alone he complained about taking up a few hours per week on paperwork he found utterly pointless: why there was so much work just for a guy to take a shift off did seem ridiculously inexplicable. Sylvie at least took some comfort that her paperwork all went through the paramedics’ ranks, so not through Matt. Chief had to sign off on it, including furlough days and her annual reviews, but Matt didn’t (which is really why they could get married and stay in the same house on the same shift). Sylvie hated to interrupt him, so even if the shift was quiet she left him in his quarters to work. If he wanted to socialize, he’d be in the common room with the rest of them. It was the de facto house policy to let the officers alone when they retreated to their quarters – you only interrupted if you needed something important. So she wasn’t worried, until Gallo came out from the direction of the bunkroom with an odd look on his face.

“What’s with the look, Gallo?” Herrmann asked, having noticed the same thing she did.

“Anyone else feel sick? I mean, I didn’t think we messed up dinner, but-“
“Who’s sick?” Sylvie asked, though she had a feeling she knew.
“Captain Casey’s in his quarters, looks real sick – I didn’t want to bother him to ask.”
“I’ll go check on him.” Sylvie volunteered immediately. No one was surprised at all. She might not wear the ring at work (because she was not risking it getting messed up or something, maybe she’d get used to it later, but the ring was way too precious to pull gloves off and on over it 90 times a shift or any number of other things they had to do) but that didn’t mean she stopped being his fiancée when they stepped into the firehouse. She moved as quietly as she could to Matt’s quarters, unsurprised to find the blinds pulled and the lights off. She opened the door, cursing when the motion moved the blinds a little which created a noise. Oh, well, she had to check on him anyway. She kept her voice quiet, just enough to be audible, “Matt?”

“I’m fine.” He spoke at almost his usual volume, and his whole body flinched. Very convincing.
“Perfectly fine.” She whispered back, rolling her eyes. She was so going to have 'I'm fine' inscribed on his tombstone. He'd probably say it as his last words. “I’m going to tell Chief you’ve got a migraine-“
“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. Did you take your meds?”
“I just need quiet for a few minutes. Quiet and dark.” His voice was barely above a whisper now.

“That’s a no. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Sylvie shook her head as she left his quarters. She’d only been through two migraines with Matt so far, he really didn’t have them that often. Gabby had never really talked about him getting migraines, but Matt said he’d had them off-and-on since his epidural hematoma, just a few per year. He got headaches in general more often than that, but she knew a migraine really wasn’t a ‘headache’. She stopped by the Chief’s office first.

“Chief, Casey’s down with a migraine. He says he’s ‘fine’, but I don’t think he’s going to be able to cover 81 for at least a couple hours, it could be the rest of shift.”
“Do I need to send him home?”

“I’d like to keep him here, but you might need to call in a relief.” Sylvie hated to say that, because Matt would be pissed if this passed in a few hours and he’d been taken off shift. “Give it a couple hours, see how he does. I won’t say the banned phrase, but…”
“Yeah.” Chief got it. It had been a very quiet shift so far, only one call for truck and that was hours ago. If they were lucky, it would stay that way and they wouldn’t need to worry about a relief officer, but on the other hand, if they had to go right away, they couldn’t justify knowing Matt was down and NOT calling in a floater. “What’re the odds he pulls out of it?”
“The only two I’ve seen him have both lasted about 6 hours.” Sylvie had to be honest. “I’m going to get some meds in him, see if it helps.”

#Ambulance 61, Engine 51, residential fire, support units requested at 3033 Broad Street.#

“Go, we’ll check on him.” Chief encouraged, and Sylvie knew she didn’t have any option.

“Quietly!” She reminded as she hustled towards the app floor and the ambo. Hopefully this was a quick call and she could get right back to Matt.

It wasn’t a short call. It was nearly two hours before she was back at the house by the time they got done checking everyone out and clearing everyone. At least they weren’t seriously hurt, but clearing an entire party of people of smoke inhalation and giving them all the standard spiel was still time-consuming. She wanted to get back to Matt. The fact that it was nearly 11 pm and everyone was still in the common room, no one had sacked out yet, that didn’t bode well, she figured. Nor did the fact that Herrmann got up to meet her the second she walked in.

“Chief’s gonna take 81 directly if he has to, rest of shift, but Casey’s down for the count.”
“Where’s Severide?” She asked, not having seen him at the Squad table when she passed.

“Holding Casey’s hair.” Delton or Dalton, something, was a short-term sub on Engine, and Sylvie knew by Herrmann’s expression the man had not been his first choice. He was competent, but a loud-mouthed jerk, and Sylvie hadn’t appreciated his tendency to check out her, Foster’s, and Kidd’s butts, either. God, they were so lucky that the guys at 51 regularly were not the ‘traditionalist’ jerks some other houses had.

“Captain Casey’s hair is like an inch long.” Ritter wrinkled his nose, sounding confused.

“Don’t know what else to call it when a grown man hovers over a sick guy like he’s his girlfriend. Be worried about them if I didn’t know exactly where those two are getting it.”
“Okay, Delton, let’s go – you can start cleaning the rig.”
“That sounds like a candidate’s-“
“Job for an idiot who mouths off about a Captain, exactly. Move it.” Herrmann pointed to the app floor. Delton scoffed, shook his head, but went.

“I’m going to go check on Matt.” Sylvie announced, then went to do just that. She found both Matt and Kelly in the bathroom, Kelly holding open the door to a stall while Matt looked like he might be trying to sleep leaning against the far wall inside the stall. Damn bathrooms echo, though, which didn’t help her arrive silently.

“He’s been puking for about fifteen minutes.” Kelly told her softly.

“Dry heaves by now?” She asked.

“Dry heaves pretty much the whole time. Don’t think he ate much today.”

“My stomach felt off.” Matt put in with a whisper. “Took a dose, usually helps.”
“How long ago?” Sylvie asked gently.

“Before your call.”

“Okay, if you’re just heaving, we need to get you back to your quarters, Matt. You can’t hang out in here the rest of shift. The bunk will be better. And we can try the second dose of your meds.”
“Not sure I can walk straight line.”
“I got ya, buddy. Come on.” Kelly pretty much lifted Matt to his feet. He turned to Sylvie, smiling tightly. “I got him, he’s not…”
“I’ll get his meds.” Sylvie nodded, knowing Kelly meant that Matt wasn’t taking much of his own weight and while Sylvie was used to lifting patients on a stretcher (with Foster), there was a reason that they usually had the firefighters (at least one) help lift larger patients into the ambo. She wasn’t too proud to admit dead lifting or practically carrying her fiancé was not her best skill. By the time Kelly got Matt on his bunk, Sylvie had his cartridge prepped and quickly pressed it to his deltoid, pushing up the sleeve of his shirt.

“Kelly, can you grab a pair of the headphones from Squad, the ones for your loudest extraction gear?”
“Sure.”
“What for?” Matt whispered.

“I’m going to have you wear them for a few minutes so the guys can come to bed without making you puke up what isn’t in your stomach.” She whispered back. “Once they’re sleeping, you’ll be fine.”
“Never had…hit at work.”
“I know.”
“Can you…” Matt rolled his eyes open, looking apologetic. “You’re working, sorry. Never mind.”
“Matt.” He was infuriating.
“I’m fine.”

“If you’re still ‘fine’ in a few hours, I’m taking you into the ER.”
“Can’t treat. Just live with it. Just a headache.”
“For now, try to rest.”

“Matt, babe, we need to go home.” It was 7:55 and she’d left waking him as late as possible. The entire shift had managed practically a vow of silence (at least in the bunk room) once they realized just how severe Matt’s migraine was. None of them, except Kelly and Sylvie, had actually seen Matt have a migraine before. She knew it had shaken some of them. They had a pretty good idea of Matt’s pain threshold, he’d been shot in front of most of them after all, so seeing him practically in the fetal position from a ‘headache’ made an impression.

“Tell me it’s cloudy.” Matt managed to whisper, and she wished she could. It was sunny and bright and hot already, typical for a Chicago July.

“Let me take you to the ER for-“
“It’s just a headache. If the Imitrex doesn’t help, just gotta get through it.”
“I’m not sure that’s-“
“Can you drive?”
“Uhm…I wasn’t planning on letting the man who can’t open his eyes drive, no.” Sylvie shot back, her voice still low but seriously how was that even something he was asking right now. She tried to ignore and hoped Matt was entirely missing that half of third shift were staring at them as he practically shuffled out the door. At least it looked like he might’ve taken a hit on shift, since he was holding a cold pack to the back of his head which he had insisted was helping. It was the third chemical cold pack they’d used overnight. She got him in the truck, grateful that he’d been so sick overnight since at least when he started heaving from the light or the noise or the movement or all of it, his stomach didn’t even have bile to bring up anymore. He had promised that he’d follow her orders and drink plenty of fluids once they got to the loft, but he’d resisted at work because he didn’t want to keep puking. It was amazingly hard to argue with someone when every noise made them wince. So rather than keep making noise, she let him win. For now.

They got home, and Kelly and Stella had clearly rushed back to get ahead of them. Kelly had blocked the window in Matt’s bedroom already (she’d not even noticed the black-out curtains before, they never used them) had a lined trash can near the bed, along with a few choice beverages. Sylvie maneuvered him into bed, then slipped back out into the living room.

“Thank you.” She nodded at Kelly, who just shrugged.

“This is the longest I’ve seen one last, but he’s had these things since that beam fell on him.”
“Gabby never mentioned them.”
“I’m not sure how much she knew.” Kelly admitted with an almost wince. “He was in denial about his head injury for a while, lied to all of us, including himself, about how his recovery was going. I think he was scared. Only long-lasting effect is he can’t remember the actual injury or a couple days up to it or after it, and these migraines. The last three times I remember him getting like this, before she left, he was on the outs with Gabby.”
“So is it stress-related?”
“I don’t think so.” Kelly shrugged. “He only has two or three a year, I think, usually. Ah, he’s supposed to call his neurologist after he has one though.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Nope – read it on some paperwork.”
“Kelly. That’s private.”
“I’m his medical proxy.” Kelly shrugged, clearly unapologetic. “I figure I need to know.”
“So you knew he had a regular neurologist.”
“Yeah, didn’t you?”
“Not until recently.”
“Did you ask?”
“No, the incredibly specific question ‘do you have a neurologist’ never came up.” Sylvie pointed out sharply.

“Just ask him about his doctors. He’s a sh*t liar. You can always tell if he’s leaving sh*t out.”
“True.”
“One more thing he’d never tell you. He likes it if you pet him.” Kelly looked a little uncomfortable, like he was admitting a deep dark old secret or something. “Just like, run your fingers through his hair. And if you tell anyone I know that or did that, he and I will both kill you. Together.”
“You know, your secret is totally out. The two of you love each other.”
“He’s the kid brother I never wanted.” Kelly scoffed. “He looks like butter won’t melt in his mouth, but you notice it’s usually his idea to do sh*t like jump off a building into a river? Crazy little sh*t.”

“He’s only about ten months younger than you, almost eleven.”
“I’m still older, smarter, and better-looking.” Kelly grinned. “Stella and I are gonna catch naps, try to do the same with him.”

She absolutely used Kelly’s trick about petting Matt, after she’d made him slowly drink the entire Gatorade, and he fell asleep with his head in her lap, which she loved even if it was not the most comfortable thing to not be able to move for the hours he slept. But there was something beautiful about how trusted she felt with him sleeping like this, clearly her holding him rather than the other way around. She dozed, her hand resting on his head protectively, until he started to shift. She popped awake.

“Matt, how do you feel?”
“Like I have a headache, not a skull bursting at its seams.” Matt managed a small smile. “By dinner, I’ll be fine. Sorry. I usually have some warning and can take the meds before it gets into swing. This one just smacked into me for some reason.”
“You’re telling your neurologist about it at your check-up. If it happens again, we’re moving that check-up up from winter to immediately, too.”
“Okay.” He moved to get up, and she raised her eyebrows at him as she held him a little tighter.

“You’re spending all day in bed, mister. Don’t even think about it.”
“I’m fine with all day in bed with you.” Matt smiled a little. “But how about we get undressed, and you let me pee first?”

Chapter 4: Wedding Plans 101

Chapter Text

By the day after his migraine, you’d never know anything had ever been wrong with Matt. He was working on the house all day then catching the White Sox at Molly’s over a couple beers, and he was perfectly himself. He went back on shift the following day just fine, and everyone acted just as if he hadn’t been completely incapacitated for several hours. He was also, she noted, using the house, some small paying jobs, and baseball season to dodge her attempts to wrangle him around on wedding invitations and planning. Well, they needed to be sent out so he was just going to have to be ambushed when they got home from Molly’s. She had a checklist, and she was not making all these decisions herself – he seemed to think once he’d asked her and helped pick the venues, he was done. Nope. Not happening, mister.

“Matt, sit down.” Sylvie pretty much ordered, pointing at the table, as he and Kelly came in the door. Kelly slapped him on the back, and kept walking towards his bedroom.

“I’m just going to, uh, go to bed.”
“It’s 9 pm.” Matt laughed. “Coward!”

“Hey, wedding planning is not my job.”
“No, but you’ve got the bachelor party, right?” Sylvie asked, before Kelly could make an escape to his room. Kelly looked a little nonplussed, looking at Matt sort of expectantly. She shot an exasperated look at Matt. “You didn’t even ask him yet?”
“I didn’t think I had to ask. I thought it was implied.” Matt sighed, rolled his eyes, and turned to Kelly. “Severide, you’re my best man.”

“Awesome. Yeah, Sylvie, I’ll get the bachelor party.”

“Not too wild, he has to be alive and aware for the wedding! And we have shift in between!” Sylvie reminded, and Kelly waved over his shoulder, ostensibly meaning he’d heard and understood. She turned to Matt, shaking her head. “You’re supposed to ask, not tell.”
“I thought he knew.” Matt shrugged. “The guy’s let me crash in his guest room for nearly two years.”

“Men. Okay, bachelor party is in good hands. Stella is my maid of honor, by the way, and she is handling the bachelorette.” She checked those off her list.
“We’re both going to be zombies, letting those two plan our parties.”
“Well, better than Foster.”
“True.” Matt laughed heartily, and dropped into one of the chairs. “So, you’ve caught me, what’re we looking at here? We’ve already got Holy Family for the wedding ceremony, the Drake for the reception – and yes, I remembered to sign the thank you card you left and mailed it to Alderwoman Lacey.”

“It was very nice of her to help us get the Drake – I can’t believe they had an opening with this much notice.”
“That woman has been trying to remarry me off to every single woman she knows since she found out Gabby and I divorced.” Matt shook his head. “I’m just grateful her daughters were both already married.”
“She seems very sweet, she’s just a romantic.” Sylvie grinned at him. “She calls you a penniless Prince Charming, it’s completely adorable.”

“I’m not penniless, except in her social circles.” Matt chuckled. “So, both venues, date picked, we got a DJ for the reception, deposits paid, how much else is there to possibly decide?”
“Oh, you poor boy.” Sylvie shook her head at him. “You have so much to learn, grasshopper. Music for the church has to be confirmed. We need a photographer, though Dillon at the Drake has someone he recommends, we still need to meet with him. I already took care of getting a block of hotel rooms at the Drake for the out-of-town guests. Do we want engagement photos?” She asked, looking over her checklist of items to do.

“Is that…like a requirement?”
“No, and I’m going to take that as a ‘limit the number of pictures I have to take’ hint.”
“It’s not that I don’t want-“
“Matt, it’s fine. I get it.” Sylvie reassured him. She had wondered just how comfortable he was going to be in basically photo shoots. She wasn’t all that worried she’d miss engagement photos, and since they were so close to the wedding already, it seemed pointless. They were just sending out invitations, not even save-the-date cards because it was that close. Short engagements cut a few things out. “Mom is going to be here in a few days to go dress shopping with me. She’s staying in Cruz’s room at my apartment, so don’t worry about any dust in the house.”
“We’re down to just the second floor work, though there’s still cardboard and plastic down on the floors to protect them.” Matt smiled at her. “End of next month, we should have everything signed off, everything finished – including finally changing that front fence you hate – and be ready to move in.”
“Great, so we’re moving two weeks before our wedding.”
“Would you rather push it back? We own it, we can-“
“No, no, no. I am living with you, in that house, as soon as it is finished and ready. I appreciate Kelly, and Stella, letting us live here, well you live here and I practically do, but I am ready for just our space.”

“We can christen every room if we want.” Matt leaned over and kissed her. She kissed him back, and somehow he slid her chair over to him, and she was in his lap, astride him, before she really knew what the hell had happened. She could feel him growing hard against her as they kissed, and she forced her brain back on track, and no, his penis was not the track, though the most basic part of her brain was on that track for sure.

“Invitations.” She managed, pulling back from his sinfully delicious mouth. “We have to get invitations out next week, so even with a rush job, we have to decide, you’ve been putting it off for a week. So, first thing, color.”
“Isn’t paper white?” Matt asked. “What’s wrong with white?”
“I meant our wedding colors. My bridesmaid dresses, the decorations, invitations, groomsman vests and ties, it all needs a color theme.”

“And I’m supposed to have an opinion.” Matt sounded like he was guessing.
“Actually, I just want your approval.” Sylvie announced airily. “I want to go with scarlet as the main color and black tuxedos for the men.”
“Red and black.” Matt laughed lightly, but he clearly approved.

“Either Blackhawks or the colors of Truck 81 – though I’m drawing the line at putting the Blackhawks logo or the fighting goat emblem on anything for our wedding.”

“I was just thinking about you in that scarlet red little-“
“Matt! I am not wearing anything bright under a white dress.” He looked genuinely disappointed. Then he quickly came to some conclusion in his own head.

“We’ll be too tired for sex the night of the wedding anyway, I bet. So, promise me you’ll bring it on the honeymoon?”
“I promise.” She meant it, too. She loved that he was so attached to that pair of bra and underwear she’d bought for their second date. There was no mystery to it left at all, but he always reacted the same way to the sight of her in it.

“Do you actually care about the invitation design?” She asked, looking over her shoulder at a few options she’d liked. His hands were still on her hips, keeping her on his lap. “I have it narrowed down to three I like.”
“I can pick between three. Just don’t ask me to describe what I want – give me visual options.”
“Okay, if you’d let me off your lap, you could see what’s on the table.”
“I’d rather have you on my lap.” Matt kissed her quickly, but let her up. She moved back to her own chair, though she stayed right next to him. He looked over the three options, looked at her, then back at the options, then back at her. “Am I supposed to know which ones you want? Like you have an answer you want me to give?”
“I love all three, Matt. There is no wrong answer.”
“You say that, but-“
“Matt. I promise. I have a favorite, but I want your honest choice.”

“So you do have an answer you want me to give.”
“I just want you to give me an honest answer. Which do you like best?”
“I like B best. It’s simple, traditional, and it doesn’t look weird with my parents’ name missing.”
“We can put them in.” Sylvie rushed to assure him. “I didn’t know if you wanted…”
“No. No I don’t.” Matt shook his head. “I don’t think I owe them much credit for my adult life and choices, like a wedding. And I’m not putting my mother’s new name on anything.”
“Okay, B it is.” She was not going to touch his sore feelings about his mother remarrying, not right now, possibly not ever. She wondered if part of it wasn’t sore feelings about his mother spending so little time with him – he’d lost her at barely sixteen to prison, probably had high hopes for when she was out, getting to spend time with her again, and Sylvie was pretty sure he talked to her maybe once a month and saw her less often than that. Nancy seemed happy to live her life without her kids, and Matt…still missed his mom. He wanted family, desperately, and the one he had seemed to mostly let him down.
“No, which one was your favorite?” Matt asked. “We have to decide together, not just my-“
“Well, you’re in luck, because B was my favorite, too.” She replied, kissing him again. If every decision was sealed with a kiss, they were going to be doing a lot of kissing, but she was absolutely okay with that. She knew that look, though, as she pulled back. “Honestly, Matt, B is the one I wanted. It lets us put a little red in while still looking very classic.”

“What’s next on your builder’s list?” Matt asked.

“Registry. Do we want one?”
“No. I think it’s tacky for someone my age to be begging for stuff to start a house.”
“Okay.” That was a very firm response. Sylvie was kind of surprised he had such firm feelings about wedding registries. Still, she didn’t really disagree with him.

“You don’t mind?” He seemed much more hesitant all of a sudden. “I was thinking about asking people to donate to a charity to celebrate us if they want to do something, and I mean, if your family has sentimental gifts, that’s great, but we can buy our own furnishings. Plus, your family and friends from Fowlerton are all spending money to come up, I don’t want gifts, too – just them to come up so they can be here for you.”
“You are the sweetest man on the planet.” Sylvie smiled broadly, and kissed him again. Yep, definitely a lot of kissing. Far from the worst part of planning a wedding. “We need to put that on the invite though, so we have to pick a charity. We can do the 100 Club of Chicago.”
“What about that and the Parkinson’s Foundation – for your grandpa.” She felt herself tear up, because of course Matt would remember that and think of that. She nodded, not wanting her voice to crack as she thought of how her grandfather had sort of wasted away over her childhood, trapped inside a body that was failing him while still mentally alert. Research into helping treat maybe someday cure Parkinson’s that was definitely an idea she loved for her wedding. She took a moment, scanning down the list for what was next.

“Oh, we have to talk wedding party.”
“Severide-“
“Oh my God, at the wedding, please, the two of you, just get over it and use your first names. You’re basically brothers, he doesn’t have to be dying for you to call him Kelly.”
“I think he’s called me ‘Matt’ six times since I’ve known him. He’s gonna make his toast and call me Casey.” Matt pointed out, sounding a little defensive.

“I’ll talk to him, too, just please, try to get used to calling him Kelly.” Sylvie really did not want them to be Severide and Casey at her wedding. It was fine at work, even at Molly’s, but it wouldn’t kill either of them to refer to each other by their actual names at her wedding. She wasn’t going to push it too far, but maybe she’d get everyone to call Mouch Randall? Probably not. She’d be explaining ‘Mouch’ and ‘Otis’ all night. Maybe not Otis, at least that sounded like a person’s name.
“Fine.” Matt rolled his eyes. “Kelly and Kidd – Stella,” he corrected quickly, “and who else, I mean, how many are we talking? Do you want me to put Leo in my side?”

“I want to keep it smallish. The bigger it gets, it just gets hard to organize, and the head table gets ridiculous.” Sylvie didn’t see any disagreement in Matt’s expression. “I’ve already asked Stella, Emily, Lily, Chloe, and for junior bridesmaids, I was thinking Violet and Caitlyn, Caitlyn Prosser, the girl I babysat for like four years when I was-“
“I recognize the name.” Matt nodded. “I think Violet will be very excited, thank you.”
“So, no pressure, but you need kind of a matching number. And no, you shouldn’t include my brother who you barely know just because he’s my brother.”
“Kelly, of course.” Matt emphasized again, clearly teasing her. “Chief, if he doesn’t mind. Herrmann, and Mouch. Hey, don’t laugh – those two are my longest-serving guys.”

“I’m not laughing at your choices, I’m just picturing Mouch’s face when you ask.” Sylvie smiled, she knew Mouch was going to be so touched, but then they’d all be so ‘guy’ and not be able to act like they were touched.

“We need ushers, right? Cruz and Otis, seems the obvious choice.” Matt paused, then nodded about something. “I want to ask Heather to have Griffin and Ben be junior groomsmen. Andy should be there but…” Matt’s voice broke just a little. So many years later, it was easy – too easy, she thought – to forget how close Matt and Andy Darden had been, especially since quite a few people in the house now hadn’t really known Darden. “I already talked to her, they’re coming up for the wedding, but I need to ask her about that.”
“Of course, Matt. It’s perfect.”
“How much more do we have to decide tonight?” Matt asked, glancing at her list. He wrinkled his nose. “That list doesn’t account for parts of the service.”
“What?”
“We need readers for the service. We agreed no full mass – make your parents and their friends less uncomfortable – but we still have readings. And some people to pass out programs, I guess.”
“Okay. Any ideas on that?” She added that to the list.

“Probably easiest if the readers are Catholics.” Matt shrugged. “The Herrmann clan? Father will read the Gospel, but we need two readings and the prayers of the faithful, which we can have the little ones do together – Annabelle can herd Kenny if he needs it.”
“Cindy and Herrmann are going to be so touched.”

“It leaves out Lee Henry.” Matt looked stumped. “We can find something for him, right? And Terrence – T-bone needs to be in.”
“I still cannot believe I didn’t know you call that adorable child T-bone.”
“I babysit.” Matt shrugged. Sylvie was just ecstatic that Matt had starting doing that again, and he could almost meet Donna’s eyes when they went over. Donna had been cool as a cucumber, thank God, you’d never know she’d seen those pictures. Also, it was utterly adorable how much Matt liked kids and kids liked Matt.

“What about a ringbearer, without a flower girl? I don’t like the idea of flowers in a church on the floor anyway.”
“I think that’d be great.” Matt nodded, smiling slightly. “Terrence and Chief in matching tuxes, Donna will take a hundred pictures by herself.” Sylvie also realized that they’d have to rehearse enough that hopefully Terrence didn’t just run at Matt yelling ‘Casey’ and going for a high-five or something.

“Okay, I have bridesmaid dress shopping set up with the girls already. You need to ask everyone who needs a tux and get those sorted out.” She went down the rest of the list quickly. “We have meetings with Dillon for the menu, and the cake – do you want a groom’s cake?”
“A what?”
“A separate cake for the groom, it’s usually themed to his interests and chocolate or something to give an alternative to the wedding cake.”
“I don’t think I need a separate cake, no.” Matt looked baffled at the idea of it. “Can’t we have a chocolate wedding cake anyway? Is there some secret reason that you can’t put the white frosting or whatever on chocolate cake?”
“We’ll talk cake with Dillon and his staff next week. You know, all of this might be cheaper if we weren’t in a hurry to get hitched.” She realized, last week, that weddings were frighteningly expensive, and more so if you didn’t have time to wait for sales or whatever. Matt just kept telling her not to worry about it, which for a man who was astonishingly frugal in most things (he wore socks until they had at least two holes, drove a truck that was two decades old, etc.) was surprising. She was refusing to ask what he was planning for a honeymoon – or where he was finding the money for all of this. She suspected it was the looming settlement from his civil suit against Terry Anderson, which she was totally okay with. Let the jerk pay for their wedding and reception and honeymoon and their kids’ college educations and anything else she could think of.
“I’d rather pay more and have you be my wife faster.” Matt replied. She didn’t know why he was in a hurry, or why she felt the same hurry, they were going to be living together regardless of the legalities, and God knew they hadn’t and weren’t going to worry about waiting to have sex.

“I’ll pick the linens, unless you have strong opinions on napkins, tablecloths, and centerpieces?”
“We’re sticking with the red theme, right?”
“Yes, fire engine red.” Sylvie agreed. “Not everything red, lots of white mixed in. But for flowers, red, white, and some navy – those are dyed of course.”

“Then no, no strong opinions. My strong feelings are only about the people involved, not the linens. Though, about your dress-”
“Nope, that you do not get an opinion on, Matt.”
“Yeah no. Just, uh, one little reminder when you shop, it’s a Jesuit church – no strapless without a shrug or something over it.”
“Did you really think my mother is going to okay a risqué dress for a church wedding?”
“No, but…” Matt shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got. Oh, do I get to pick the tuxes?”
“It has to be black.” Sylvie insisted. “And I don’t like bowties.”
“I don’t either.” Matt looked relieved.

“Then yes, you have relatively free rein on tuxes. You and Kelly dress yourselves pretty well, pick out what looks nice.”

Chapter 5: Captain Stomach Flu

Chapter Text

“Hey, Sylvie, I was talking to the landlord – well the management company anyway – and with Cruz out, the three-bedroom is too big for us, and it’s going to be way too expensive once you move in with Casey.” Otis announced as they were getting coffee before shift. Matt had basically told her he didn’t want her to stay over last night at his, which she might have taken more offense to if he hadn’t been down with what sounded like a really wretched stomach bug. Stella had called to reassure her that they were leaving beverages at his door and he was taking them, so at least he seemed to be staying hydrated even if he was also quarantining himself.

“So, here’s the thing. Our lease isn’t up for several months after your house will be done, until after your wedding in fact. But, we can get out of our lease early, no penalty, on one condition.”
“What’s the condition?”
“We, uh, have to be out in a week, because they have someone who wants this three-bedroom on short notice.”
“A week? Neither of us have someplace lined up.” Sylvie pointed out.

“I’m pretty sure you can move in with Casey. You practically live there already.” Otis pointed out. “I can find something, I think. Look, this’ll save us a ton of money, or me trying to find two roommates to take over you and Cruz’s spots. So, we have to let the landlord know by 5 o’clock today if we can be out.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll talk to Matt – and Kelly and Stella.” Brett nodded. “It makes sense. Are you sure you can find something that quick?”

“If nothing else, Herrmann still has that place over his garage, right?” Otis shrugged.

Matt looked like crap, that was all she could think. Of course he showed up to shift just like nothing was wrong because he was Matt Casey and he would never take a sick day. That would mean admitting that he wasn’t super-human and actually got sick and wasn’t ‘fine’. No one in the firehouse was believing that he felt fine, and a pretty much hourly bathroom visit was not convincing anyone either – it also was not fun for the rest of the house because puking sounds were no one’s favorite soundtrack. He kept to himself, and no one bothered him. If Chief had been there instead of at headquarters most of the day Matt probably would’ve been sent home sick, but he was the ranking officer in house at the moment and the only person with any hope of convincing him to go home (Kelly) was refusing to talk to him.

“He’s a grown man. It’s his decision.”
“He’s a grown idiot.” Sylvie replied, rolling her eyes. “Also, he’s still contagious, what happened to his self-quarantine from yesterday?”
“Ask him.”
“Why didn’t you ask him, this morning, before he came to shift?”
“I did. So did Stella. He was slightly more polite to her.” Kelly replied. “Migraine-Casey is quiet and compliant. Hurt-Casey is stubborn, defiant, but polite, mostly. Sick-Casey is a sh*t. You want to deal with his crap, go for it. Just to warn you, he’s mean.”
“Matt’s never mean.” Sylvie shook her head, that wasn’t Matt. He could be snappy, sure, but not mean. He hadn’t been mean earlier when she’d told him he should’ve stayed in bed.

“Yeah? Go in to his quarters and tell him he should go home.”
“Fine, I will. Again.”
“sh*t, Sylvie, don’t.” Kelly grabbed her wrist, pulling her to a stop. “I wasn’t serious. He’s a toddler when he’s sick. It’s a stomach bug. He’ll be fine. Just take him a Gatorade or something, check on him, make yourself feel better.”
“Well, I have something I need to ask you first, actually anyway.” She paused, seeing him nod as though to prompt her to ask. “Otis and I need out of the lease on the three-bedroom, because obviously Cruz moved out and I’m moving in with Matt when the house is finished. The problem is our landlord wants us out next week, so he can re-lease the apartment. It saves us a bunch of money, including fees for breaking our lease early. But I’d need to move into the loft because the house isn’t ready.”
“I don’t mind, Stella won’t either. You already practically live there.” Kelly shrugged easily.

“It’ll just be a few weeks until we get the house finished.”
“No rush, been telling Case that for months.”

“You know, it’s kind of adorable how much you like having him around to keep an eye on him.” Sylvie grinned at Kelly broadly. “He’s clueless, but I know you’d be fine if he lived in your second bedroom forever. He doesn’t know you sometimes check on him in the middle of the night either, does he?”
“How’d you…”

“Know? You woke me a couple times. It’s not often, just sometimes.”

“Look, don’t tell Casey.” Kelly sighed. He looked around, as if he expected one of the other firefighters to suddenly crop up out of nowhere at the Squad table. “I have nightmares sometimes. He scares the sh*t out of me. It’s nice to know he’s there and breathing.”
“It’s sweet, Kelly. Really.” Sylvie reassured. “I do the same thing sometimes. After that call, two weeks ago, the one where he just missed having his head smashed by a steel beam, I barely slept for two nights, just watched him sleep to make sure he was still there and…”
“I’ve got squashed by an elevator in mine, too.” Kelly admitted. “Burned to death in that factory. In his own apartment. Another head injury. An explosion. Shot in the face on a call – that one haunts me, f*ck. I know he had nightmares, so did I.”

“He scares us. He doesn’t mean to, but he does.”
“I wish he’d give more of a f*ck about himself.” Kelly sighed. “He’s better, with you, like he was when it was good with Hallie. He’s still a sh*t when he’s sick, but he’s more careful.”
“Do you…” Sylvie wasn’t quite sure how to ask this, except to just ask and sound melodramatic. “Do you think he’s ever been suicidal?”
“Directly? No.” Kelly scoffed a little. “Heather said he’d never kill himself. That was before he and Hallie even met, there was another girl, she was a real…none of us liked her. She was bad for him. But I remember Heather said she never worried about suicide with Matt because when he gets depressed, he gets so low he doesn’t even think he deserves death, he’s not good enough even to die and get the pain over with.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, that was a bad break-up.” Kelly admitted softly. “Maybe he’ll tell you about Susanna someday.”

“How bad…was it the break-up or the relationship that was bad?”
“Both. Even Andy hated her, and Andy was the easiest guy to get along with. I don’t even remember where he picked her up – she was a drunk with a recreational drug problem. The opposite of Matt Casey in every damn way. His story, not mine, though.” Kelly found a small smile. “He’s happy, Sylvie, with you. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“I worry about everything with him.” She admitted. “I didn’t realize how close together love and irrational worry were until I fell in love with that stupidly brave firefighter.”
“I’m glad he has you.” Kelly spoke after a moment of silence. “I worried I was leaving him…with Stella, I was leaving him on his own too much. He needs people. Not crowds, just his people. I thought Gabby had him, but she didn’t.”
“You can trust me, Kelly.”
“I know I can.” He nodded, and smiled softly again. “So, no, no problem with you moving in for a while. It’ll be weird when you two aren’t there, when the house is finished. The place is gonna seem really quiet.”

“I guess I should ask Matt, huh?”
“He’s already asked you to live with him. Just explain the situation to him, he’ll be happy to have you over all the time.” Kelly paused. “Once he’s done puking every hour, he’ll be happy.”

“Can I ask how you’re feeling or will you – okay, nope, I’m going to get that look.” Sylvie changed tacks quickly. Matt had just shot her a truly disgusted look, so clearly he was sick of the ‘how are you feeling’ question but if he didn’t come to work sick, he wouldn’t have to be asked that by every single person in the house (and a couple paramedics on the last call apparently). She had meant to check on him earlier, just after she’d talked to Kelly, but there had been a barrage of calls so either she or Matt was not actually in 51 for the next 5 hours. She handed him one of the lighter Gatorades he preferred, and sat down on his bunk. Judging by the stack of paperwork on his desk, his look was not just about his bad stomach, he was also probably annoyed at how much paperwork was involved in his job. Sometimes she got to hear his complaints about how he never wanted another promotion because judging by the last one, each promotion tripled your paperwork load and halved your actual work on calls. “I actually need to ask a favor. I need to ask if I can move in with you, in the loft, because I’m going to be sort of homeless starting next week.”
“Why are you – I mean, I’ll have to ask Severide, but of course I’m fine with it – “

“I already asked Kelly, he said it’s fine.”
“Kind of presumptuous, isn’t it – asking him before me?” Matt asked, but he was grinning.

“Well, I did have a pretty good idea of the answer, given we own a house together and you put this ring on my finger.” Sylvie replied, returning the smile with one of her own.

“So, since you’re the opposite of homeless, why are you moving out of your place next week?”
“The landlord can lease it, which means we can get out of our lease without a penalty, if we leave next week. Since Otis is going to be on his own once we finish the house, it’s way too much apartment for just him. So, to help him out and so I don’t feel like I need to still pay rent when I’m not living there, we decided to take the offer and hurry up.”
“Is Otis moving in with Lily?” Matt asked, looking thoughtful.

“Uhm, no, I think…maybe they’re not wanting to do the live-together-before-marriage thing.” Sylvie had sort of gotten that impression.

“They’re getting married? When did-“
“No, at least, not that I’ve heard officially.” Sylvie rushed to cut that off. Matt wasn’t usually one to pass gossip, but God knows who might overhear what in this house.

“Is he moving back in with his parents? Odds of finding a good place on this kind of notice seems low.”
“I think he was thinking about talking to Herrmann.” Sylvie shrugged, not really sure what Otis was planning to do. Matt looked thoughtful again. She let him think. He’d talk when he had his thoughts all in the order he wanted and had found the right words. He was so smart, but he worried too much about finding the rights words and kind of psyched himself out.

“What if we offered him the guest suite in the house? Rent free for now.” Matt seemed a little tentative, but she didn’t know why. It was such a great, sweet, perfect offer. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it already. Matt must’ve taken her silence for doubt. “It sounds like it’s short term, so he won’t be there very long. It’s still listed as a separate apartment with the city, so it has a separate certificate of occupancy that’s been approved. It’s close to Molly’s, which is convenient for him, and I think his parents live halfway across the city. If he needs someplace long-term, Herrmann might be a better idea, though, and there’s his thing with me and you-“
“No, it’s a perfect idea, Matt!” She couldn’t help the excited little bounce, which at least made him grin at her. “We should go ask Otis.”
“Uhm, how about you go ask Otis?” Matt looked at the stack of paperwork with resigned hatred. “I have approximately a month’s worth of paperwork to do.”
“What is all of it? Seems like more than normal.”
“Every person at 51 is getting a second set of turnouts, new health protocols for carcinogens, basically a wash-and-wear program.” Matt shrugged. “It’s the right thing, backed by science, but it’s a lot of paperwork to order for an entire shift at once. Then this new set came through about the actual truck – why they need to know this, or why it isn’t already on record I don’t know. I have to catalog the entire truck.”
“It’s contents?”
“No. The truck.” Matt held up the form, which looked several pages long, as if that would help her understand. It did at least help her understand his annoyance. “Every inch of the truck has to be gone over, every spec, every bit of rust, every latch that doesn’t catch right, the heat that takes five minutes to get working right, every bullet hole, all of it. We caught parade duty this year for Thanksgiving, I have to fill out that paperwork, and the rest of that,” he indicated a separate pile, “is from the legal department settling my lawsuit against the CFD.”
“Wait, you sued the CFD?” She asked, shocked to hear that.

“To sue Anderson and Gayan, I had to – some sort of legal mechanism about her being employed by my employer means I had to sue my employer for not removing her from the position when I first complained, I don’t know. I’m about ten years shy of the education I need to follow my lawyer when he talks about this stuff.” Matt shrugged. “I have to read it all, initial everything, make any edits to the deal, get it back to legal. Today. The rest of this is due ASAP too. And yes, I’m still nauseous as hell. So before you ask what I want for dinner, peanut butter sandwich. That’s it.”
“Peanut butter? Does that settle your stomach?” Sylvie asked, not having heard that particular nugget before, but everyone had little family stories or traditions for stomach sicknesses. Hers was flat ginger ale and crackers, then toast and bananas when you started to build back up.

“Nope.” Matt’s grin was sort of teasing. “Just tastes the same coming back up as it does going down, so-“
“That is gross.” Sylvie couldn’t help it. She was a paramedic, puke itself didn’t gross her out, but talking about the taste of puke, that was kind of gross. “Good luck with the paperwork, and I’ll see what I can do about delivering you a sandwich.”
“I’ll try to join you in the common room, but the smell of whatever is being cooked is going to make me puke for sure.”

“How did you go to a house fire and the smell of dinner is what’s going to make you puke?”
“SCBA helps.” Matt pointed out. “Also, I totally puked on the call – just a little, in the alley.”
“God, men are gross.” Sylvie shook her head. “I’m going to talk to Otis – you sure you want to offer him it rent free?”
“Yeah. If he’s trying to save for, uh, something, might help to save on a couple months' rent.”

“Okay.” She wasn’t entirely sure what Matt meant, but oh well. She didn’t need to understand everything about him.

“Otis!” Sylvie called, as Truck came back in from a call. She’d meant to ask him right away after she left Matt’s quarters, but then a call had come through for Truck of course. Otis came over to her spot at the round table, grabbing a chair, as the dinner that had been ready just as they were called was reheated quickly.

‘What’s up, Sylvie?”
“I think I have a solution, well, Matt – Casey and I have a solution to your problem, the short-term problem about giving up the apartment.” She tried to remember to call him Casey at work, because no one else called him Matt and of course they all knew his name was Matt, but like calling Otis Brian, it was strange to hear in this setting.

“Herrmann’s willing to cut me a deal on the apartment-“
“How about a rent-free deal?” She interrupted. “Casey’s idea, and I agreed, but he thought of it, is that you move into the lower floor of our new house. Rent-free. It’s not meant to be long-term, just enough for you to find a new place and Casey said something about if you were trying to save up for something, it would help out. It’s got its own entries, so you don’t have to come upstairs at all if you don’t want to, it’s already finished, and it’s really close to Molly’s for when you work late.”

“It’s already furnished, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I guess you’d have to store some of your things, but it’s just an offer for the short-term.”
“You guys don’t want me living there when you’re newlyweds.” Otis shook his head.

“Well, we won’t even be able to move in upstairs for another six weeks. That at least gives you more time to find someplace else.”
“Did she warn you about the construction noise? We’re still working on the second floor, might be some noise during the days.” Matt warned, walking behind her. He stopped, and she could see him start to turn green.

“Go, go.” She got up, practically shoving him into the briefing room so he could cut through to the bathroom or at least back to his quarters. “Smell of food I think.” She explained to everyone.

“If we all get this, I’m blaming the captain.” Emily stated. “He’s contagious, he knows that, right?”
“He’s also no longer the commanding officer on shift.” Chief announced, having entered the room, and already sounding disapproving. He was totally the house dad. Sylvie wasn’t sure who the house mom was, but Chief was definitely dad. “Someone go tell Casey I want to see him in my office. As soon as he’s done.”
“I’ll go check on him in a minute.” Sylvie volunteered immediately. She turned her attention back to Otis. “Just let us know, okay? We’re happy to have you there for a while.”

“I’ll take it.”

“You’re sure?”
“As long as the construction noise is all I have to hear, not you guys…, yeah, I’ll take it. I figure I should be able to find something by September first, be out before the wedding. Thanks, Sylvie. And thank Casey for me. I owe him a beer at Molly’s.”
“He’ll probably have you pay him back by taking deliveries.” Sylvie shook her head. “Hold off on buying him any beers. We’re happy to help, anyway. Now, I better go check on Captain Stomach Flu. Ritter, can you make a peanut butter sandwich for him?”

Chapter 6: Pre-Cana

Chapter Text

“You know, you still smell like…dirty firefighter.” Sylvie couldn’t help wrinkling her nose a little. It wasn’t Matt’s fault, but he was going to be seriously ripe by the end of the day. The joy of scheduling the group Pre-Cana class was that it just happened to be on a Saturday that they got off at 8 am and had to be at the parish retreat center by 8:45 which meant Matt had seriously had to hand off his log to Gerritsen from third watch as Truck pulled back into the bay, have Gallo stow his gear, and basically sprint for her car so they could be on time. The retreat center was out in Des Plaines, so even in Saturday morning traffic that was half an hour from 51 and Truck was 10 minutes late getting off shift because of an early morning fire.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s August, even the early calls get sweaty.”

“Did you get any sleep?”
“An hour, I think.” Matt admitted. Thankfully, she was the one driving.

“Try to doze at least on the way.”
“Oh, I called and checked yesterday before the church office closed, and they received your baptismal certificate, so we’re good to go. All my stuff was delivered last week.”
“How much ‘stuff’ did you have to submit?”
“I’m Catholic.” Matt sounded half-asleep already. “Had to have parish certificate of Baptism, Confirmation, and the annulment paperwork. We’re good.”
“Right. Annulment.” So, his church divorce decree, probably important, yeah. She remembered that they’d had to check the box for one of them having been married before on the early paperwork. She’d also had to check the box that one member was not Catholic and was not intending to become Catholic. Not that she had anything against Catholics, obviously, she was marrying one. She just didn’t think she would be converting soon. Matt didn’t seem to care. He had broached the topic, a few weeks ago, about raising his kids as Catholics. That he did care about. She wasn’t as ardent about her kids being Methodists, though she did want them to be raised in a Christian faith, so she was fine with raising Catholic kids. As long as he’d agreed that when they were in Fowlerton they’d go to the Methodist church without any issue. She spent the rest of the drive alternating between concentrating on the directions to the retreat center and wondering what exactly they were going to be doing on this Pre-Cana thing – and occasionally wondering just how close she was going to have to sit to her fiancé, whom she dearly loved, but he smelled like the burning furnishings of a house. That smell permeated a truckie’s life, she swore – because they usually had overhaul duty, it always smelled worse on them than on Engine or Squad guys. It was August and already 90 degrees outside. She really wished he’d had time for a shower, but they were going to barely get there on time as it was.

By the time they parked and got to registration, it was 8:53 – that gave them a couple minutes to find their retreat room and be utterly thankful for the coffee that was on. Sylvie’s shift had been busier than Matt’s, she knew, but unlike Truck’s, her last call had been at 1 am, so she’d slept pretty solidly from 2 until 7. At least everyone was dressed casually. Matt was still in his duty uniform, and he was still damp from sweat. At least no one was going to lead with ‘what do you do’ when talking to him – it was pretty obvious what he did for a living. They’d have to be more creative in conversation. The only real problem, besides the smell, was that his name tag had already given up any attempt at sticking to his damp polo shirt.

They were called to order, and there was a short prayer. She glanced around, glad to see a few other couples where one person was kind of stuttering on that sign-of-the-cross bit that she had to think about and Matt flew through like he had a bee in his face or something. She listened as the priest talked about the importance of marriage as a sacrament, its permanence and the reasons people got married, the value of family and faith together in raising children and shaping human society. It was brief, but pleasant, and she agreed with all of it, so that was good to know. She was a little nervous that she’d run across some random Catholic thing she’d never heard of that was going to cause a problem. She couldn’t imagine what that would be, but the lingering fear was well, lingering. The program listed a series of six one-hour workshops they’d go through in small groups, each led by a married couple. They had some time to find their group and introduce themselves. Their group included three other couples, two about their age and one much younger (if Sylvie had to guess, Kylie and Adam were both about twenty-two). She also didn’t miss that Ashleigh was looking at Matt like he was gross. Okay, he smelled a little bad. Not that bad.

The first workshop they went to was a good one. It was all about mutual decision-making and understanding of each other’s roles, including that roles would change as they changed and life changed. Matt had been upfront with everyone in the group discussion that he had personal expectations of his own role in his family – not that Sylvie was surprised, but it was nice to hear him say aloud that he saw himself as the servant of his family, that he saw himself as the first to protect his wife not just physically but emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually, that it was his job to know her needs and see them met, to know her dreams and lift her to them, and to love her before himself always. If they hadn’t been in this setting, she’d have kissed his face off for it. It was sweet and perfectly Matt. Okay, he’d put it a little more awkwardly than that, but that was what she heard. She also loved that he’d said he pretty much saw the same ‘role’ for her – if he could set expectations for her it was that he wanted someone who tried to meet his needs just as he tried to meet hers, and that way, they’d both get what they needed while prioritizing each other. So, yeah, she was winning the future-husband competition in her own opinion.

“Sylvie, what do you think?” Marie, the wife in the couple leading this workshop, asked her.

“I think my role is to be his partner, to make sure that Matt is taken care of because he’ll take care of the whole world but forget himself. My role is, I don’t know exactly, just to love the stuffing out of him, even when he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. Sometimes, that means my job is not stuff he’ll be happy about at the time, like when I make him go to the doctor and actually be honest about the severity of a headache. But it’s also my job to make sure he has time to golf and fish and play hockey, to recharge. And to kick his butt at MarioKart and Monopoly sometimes so he stays humble.” She paused. “He already does what I think a husband should do: he gives me the foundation to support any dream. He works so hard, not just to provide financially but to provide a safe, stable, happy home for a family. If I could redesign one thing about his role, I guess I’d make sure he took more time for himself sometimes. Sometimes it’s kind of frustrating that I have to drag what he wants out of him, instead of him always asking what I want.”

She had to admit to sort of tuning out the other couple’s answers. It just didn’t matter that much to her. She was a little more interested in or worried about the later workshops. What if their answers didn’t match? There was a test they took after, was there like a failing grade you could get that meant they couldn’t get married? She figured they’d sail through finances and goal-setting, even the faith in marriage workshop would go easily, they’d already talked about that, but others might be more sticking points for them. She couldn’t decide if she was grateful or not that they had the heavy hitters after lunch: communication, conflict management and fair fighting, the extended family, and ‘intimacy and sexual expression in marriage’. At least the morning was easy, and she could completely ignore the way Ashleigh went conspicuously out of her way to sit as far from Matt as possible. He was starting to ripen a bit, fine. He’d earned that smell saving someone’s life. She bet Ashleigh hadn’t spent her early morning hours pulling an 87-year-old great-grandmother out of a house fire.

They were on their own for lunch, and had been too late to really catch the continental breakfast provided. Matt had offered to order delivery before their pre-lunch workshop, apparently the retreat center in Des Plaines was less than 10 miles from where he grew up and there was a Polish restaurant he knew about halfway between that would deliver (or GrubHub delivered anyway). They ate Polish food on the grounds, making a picnic lunch of it, and chatted about nothing important. It was wonderful, and she didn’t resist when he laid back and pulled her into his arms. She would stay awake, but hopefully he’d doze, they still had about fifteen minutes before they should head back inside. It was hot, and sunny, but they had a bit of breeze and some shade, and it was really nice to have this quiet spot with him. She couldn’t help wrinkling her nose though. He really did smell.

“I can feel you wrinkling your nose, you know.” Matt said softly. He also released his hold on her. “You don’t have to cuddle. Ashleigh has made it really clear how awful I smell. That, or I’m offensively ugly, but I think it’s probably the smell.”
“You smell like a firefighter who hasn’t showered after a fire call. That’s all.”
“Someone burned down that house, you know.” Matt sighed. “Can still smell the accelerant on me it was that thick. If we’d been thirty seconds farther away, Mrs. DiGiacomo would be dead.”
“OFI will handle it.” Sylvie reminded him quietly.

They were broken up into basically just their own pair for the afternoon sessions. They were given booklets and worksheets to do together while the counseling couple talked with the other pairs in the group. So, they had to talk about managing conflict in their marriage first. She didn’t think they’d had much conflict yet, but then, no relationship would last a lifetime without conflict. The first question the worksheet asked was ‘what things do you think will cause the most conflict in your marriage’. Matt looked at her, clearly expecting her to lead off.

“Stress from work. No offense, but your mother, and possibly my mother.” She had to admit that one. “Your tendency to turtle. Those are my big fears.”
“Turtle?” Matt looked kind of shocked, and like she’d just said something a little dirty or something.

“When things happen, you go back inside your shell, like a turtle.” Sylvie explained. Matt looked relieved, and laughed a little. “What did you think I meant?”
“Only way I’ve ever heard that used was what happens when certain parts of me get real cold.”
“Oh.” It took her just a second to realize he was talking about shrinkage. “Why is that a turtle?”
“You should see what happens when a guy does the polar bear plunge.” Matt shook his head, chuckling but also blushing a little, his voice pitched to a whisper. “Let’s just say I pretty much had an innie instead of an outtie.”
“You know, not everything is about ‘Little Matt’. I’m not worried about him causing conflict in our marriage. In fact, he’s one of my favorite and the biggest parts of-“
“Seriously, in a retreat center with saints staring at me?” Matt wasn’t talking to her, was he? His voice was pitched even lower than it had been. Nope, she realized and cut off a giggle, just barely, that had definitely been towards himself, or part of him. He shot her a light glare. “You make me fifteen again, I swear.”
“So, you, what do you think will be the conflict-causing issues?”
“Aintin Jo used to say there’s three things you fight about in a marriage: money, sex, and the kids. In that order, according to her. I’d add a couple things, though, like household chores, and communication.”
“Well, we already talked finances and we’re pretty much in agreement there. Is there a way to avoid fighting about those things?”
“Well, according to our handy booklet here, it’s communication.” Matt said a little sarcastically. “Which is one of the things you said causes conflict.” Sylvie pointed out.

“The point is to get us to talk about these things. So…I think we’ve got sex later in another workshop, so let’s leave that aside. Money we’re pretty in sync on spending habits, though I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about your shoe collection I spotted last time I was at your apartment.”
“I say nothing about the Blackhawks stuff, you say nothing about my shoes.” Sylvie held up a finger in warning.

“See, compromise already.” Matt nodded quickly. “We’ve talked kids, and…we can’t really prepare for any disagreements about how we raise them, I don’t think. We share values we want to raise them with, so…that’s a good starting point. Household chores, I think we’ll probably renegotiate a lot but we split it pretty fairly, I think. Do you agree?”
“So that leaves communication.”
“Two things I want to…suggest, I guess. Ask for.” Matt corrected himself. “We keep the fighting clean – try not to bring up the past.”
“Definitely.” She could easily agree to that.

“And I know we’ve talked about this a little, but Sylvie, I need you to talk to me and listen to me. Really listen, not hear that I’m talking and wait your turn to tell me why I’m wrong. I know that’s not fair entirely because that’s my baggage left over from my past, but I’ve tried and I can’t just check that baggage. I want us to promise each other that we’ll really listen to each other.”

“Well, I think we’re pretty much acing this thing so far.” Sylvie nodded in agreement. “We’re communicating, expressing healthy expectations, all that stuff it says we’re supposed to do.”

She’d expected some tensions in the discussion of the extended family. She was pretty sure she saw some satisfaction on at least two of the other couples’ faces that she and Matt weren’t perfectly in sync on this one.

“I think we have to schedule time for both families equally. I don’t want anyone to feel favored or left out. I want his family and mine to always feel like they can just stop by and stay at our house. We have a whole guest space just for that purpose.” She addressed her comments to the guiding couple, rather than Matt directly. Mostly because she knew that look on his face.
“I think there should be limits.” Matt insisted. “I don’t want company for a month or two. I don’t want people to not call ahead and just ‘stop by’. And I don’t want my mother staying over.”
“Wait, your mother?” Ashleigh asked, looking confused.

“Sylvie, your parents are great. They’re even learning, I think, to like me.” Matt ignored Ashleigh’s question apparently. “I still don’t want them in our house for just however long they want. I had a father-in-law who lived with us, and it was…a total pain in the ass. My mother is a bigger pain in the ass. You’ve barely met her. Trust me. If we invite her in with a no-limits plan, she’ll take advantage of it at some point. We can leave aside my feelings about her husband.”

“We can’t just invite my parents to things.” Sylvie addressed Matt directly in return. “That will hurt your mom’s feelings. Our kids should know both sides’ grandparents.”
“They can’t do that, Sylvie. My dad’s been dead for almost twenty-three years. I don’t want Mom or Randy just dropping by. Can you just trust me to know my own family?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I just think, moving forward, we can’t favor one side.”
“Why not? If one side is better than the other, why not favor it?” Matt’s exasperation was clear in his tone.

“I don’t think you can say ‘better’ about family.”
“You clearly haven’t spent enough time around mine.” Matt rolled his eyes. “If I had my way, your family would not be subjected to my mother ever, not even at the wedding, but that’s not going to happen. I’m definitely not inviting shared holidays at our house. Your parents would be great. My mother would turn it into some weird sort of competition and guilt-trip for me. So if I’m going to have a guilt-trip, let it be for not inviting her so at least I get to enjoy the holiday first. Besides, she hasn’t asked to spend a single holiday with me in the last eight years. You’d think…but no. Not even Mother’s Day. So I don’t think you, or we, need to worry about her.” Sylvie didn't really have an argument against that, certainly not anything she wanted to bring up here and now.

The last workshop for their little group was the one on intimacy and sexual expression in the marriage. It started with a thorough discussion of natural family planning and the Catholic Church’s stance on birth control. Sylvie was relieved to know that the stance wasn’t quite as draconian as she’d sort of thought – though she knew for a fact that this was one of those things Matt didn’t agree with in the Church (he also clearly failed at the no-sex-before-marriage thing, but frankly, she’d had the distinct impression that no one, including the priest, at this retreat actually thought any couple here was virginal). She knew a lot of Catholics who didn’t agree with it, really. Still, it was interesting to listen to and she found a lot to value in the Church’s statement that there was a balance of procreative and unitive love in the sex act. In theory, yes, being completely open to however many children God decided to give you was wonderful, but she always fell back on the idea that what if there was a danger to a mother – was it really better to risk another pregnancy, possibly leaving already-living children motherless or live in a sex-less marriage than to just use the pill (which was not an abortifacient – just medically speaking, it really wasn’t) or a condom? That didn’t make sense to Sylvie, and she thought she had a pretty well-developed sense of morality, thanks. The last ten minutes, after a talk from the counseling couple about the importance of communicating openly about sexual needs in a marriage, was left for them to ‘openly discuss with one another sexual expectations for the marriage’. Matt moved them a little apart from the group, and was already rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, let me get to the ‘real talk’. The Church teaches to strive for perfection. We’re human, we’re not going to be perfect. God understands, I’m sure. So we’re not perfect about sex either. We’re not actually trying to open baby factories in every woman. Well, modern Catholic men aren’t, anyway. A couple priests who haven’t seen a naked woman in sixty years, they might be.”
“So, you just ignore a fundamental belief of this church you want to raise your kids in?”
“No.” Matt shook his head. “We just accept that we’re not perfect. If we were perfect, if I was perfect, I'd...well, I guess I would've been a virgin until I married Gabby. We really wouldn't be living the way we are right now. So...basically, God already knows I'm far from perfect. We want kids, right?”
“Yes.”
“We can do the natural family planning method to space them, if you want. If you want, I’m just saying, I can use condoms, you can go back on the pill, I just…I do have a problem with anything post-conception. I guess that's my line.” Matt shrugged. “I never said I was a perfect man. There’s only one method I’m honestly not okay with to prevent pregnancies.”
“Abstinence.” She knew that was coming. She wasn’t ‘okay’ with it either, frankly. “Me either. I don’t want to think about going without sex for years or something. I mean, I’m thirty so we don’t have as long to worry about it as some people, I guess. But I am not just going without sex with you for however long between when we want kids. Not an option. You are way too sexy and I am way too shallow. No, not shallow, I just want that 'unitive love' too much.”
“Alright, so we agree. See, and you were worried we’d fail. I think you’ve already got a pretty good idea about the, uh, regularity of my sexual needs, so we can probably skip that bit in this particular setting.” Matt teased, looking around at the room they were in - it wasn't really where Sylvie would choose to discuss sexual needs and desires, either. His smile dropped a moment later though. “Actually, a few more things I want to talk about, not just sex, though related definitely. Just…stuff from today. I know I’ve got a mess of crap I carry around with me, but I want to be up-front and this seems like a perfect setting for it.”
“That’s what this retreat is for, discussing key themes before marriage, it says so right on the first page of the packet.” Sylvie agreed.

“Even when we’re trying for a baby, I don’t…” He looked away from her for a second. “I don’t want to feel like it’s just for a pregnancy. I’m not, you’re not, neither of us is a breeding factory. At the end, with Gabby, I don’t know, it felt like she wanted a baby and I was just the convenient sperm donor. At first, I didn’t, later, it was later, when she was in such a hurry to go from ‘trying’ to ‘pregnant’ and I asked her wasn’t it nice spending extra time together, she didn’t answer me, not really.” Matt looked away again. Sylvie cupped his cheek gently, until his eyes came back to hers.
“You felt like she was using you?” She guessed.

“Maybe. More like maybe…I felt unwanted.” Matt shrugged, but he looked like it was pretty far from a shrug-worthy thought. “Like she wanted it over with as soon as possible to get to the end result.”
“I’m sorry, Matt. That sounds…” It sounded awful, really. It sounded sort of business-like and there was nothing business-like about Matt when he was having sex. He threw himself into it wholly, like he did everything else, and maybe he was different with his rare bar pick-ups when he was single, but when he was in love, sex was practically an act of worship for him, at least that’s how it felt to her on the receiving end. Even when it was quick and hot and dirty, it was not a means-to-an-end for Matt Casey (or for her).

“It was a blow to the ego.” Matt admitted. “Then she left, when I said I didn’t want to get her pregnant, risk her life like that, and it felt, it still feels, like if I couldn’t or wouldn’t give her a baby, I wasn’t worth…I wasn’t enough. Even before that, she asked when we’d be a family, and I told her we were a family, but it was clear from her reaction that I didn’t count to her. So I want to be really up-front about this. If we never have a baby naturally, Sylvie, I will still love and cherish and value you as my family. You are what I need. We can adopt, we can find other ways if we want kids, but we are a family, just us.”

“You are the sweetest, most amazing man I could ever imagine.” Sylvie kissed him, maybe just a little harder than was really appropriate given where they were. Hell, if they weren’t here, she’d probably encourage this into a little practice session for starting a family.

Chapter 7: Hard to Hear

Chapter Text

On the drive back from the Pre-Cana retreat, she insisted on driving again because Matt looked utterly exhausted. It had been a busy day, a worthwhile day for sure, but busy and he’d had almost no sleep on shift. Still, a few minutes into the drive, he kind of cleared his throat in the way that she knew meant he was trying to figure out how to say something more than actually trying to get her attention. She let him have a few moments to continue gathering his thoughts and just before she was going to prompt him to speak up, he did so on his own accord.

“I didn’t want to bring this up in the groups or sessions or…I was getting enough judgment for the, uh, smell and look of me. But, Sylvie, you know what an annulment is, right?”
“It’s basically a church-sanctioned divorce.” Sylvie nodded, having heard the term before. “It ended your marriage with Gabby in the eyes of the Church.”
“Only death ends a marriage in the eyes of the Church.” Matt corrected her gently. “Gabby was pissed when I sent the paperwork for it – she mentioned it at Molly’s when she…before Cruz’s wedding – but I have a couple pretty scathing voicemails, too.”
“But I thought she had to sign something or agree for it to be accepted or something.”
“She didn’t actually. She doesn’t.” Matt paused, and she glanced over at him. He was clearly trying to find the words, not just shutting up about the topic. “An annulment, and there are legal civil versions too, Severide got one for his Vegas wedding, it’s a statement from a court – in this case a Church tribunal – that there was never a marriage to begin with, that from the start something was missing that is required for a marriage to ever be valid.”
“So you told Gabby it didn’t count at all when you sent that paperwork?” That explained why she’d be upset. They’d been together for years, married for 18 months, and he was saying it never existed? Sylvie wasn’t sure she liked that idea that he was trying to ignore it or something.

“In the eyes of the Church, it didn’t, on two grounds – one stronger than the other. There are six things needed for a marriage, but two were missing, at least, my statement was that two were missing when Gabby and I got married. One she couldn’t argue, but it was the less important one to me actually, that we were both practicing – mostly – Catholics who married outside the Church in a rushed ceremony.”
“It doesn’t count if you don’t have a priest?”
“It depends, the Church recognizes the validity of other marriages for non-Catholics but Catholics not marrying in the Church indicates something may be wrong – in canon lawyers’ eyes any way.” Matt explained patiently but then paused, again clearly trying to find the right words. He was tired, and she could tell he had a lot of emotions tied up in this. “The bigger issue, and where she took offense, was my statement that she had no intention of being married to me, of fulfilling spousal duties for the rest of my life or hers.”
“You…you said she didn’t want to marry you, but she did anyway? Why would she do that?”
“You were around then, Sylvie, come on.” Matt’s patience of moments ago was gone now, apparently. “Gabby married me because it would make adopting Louie easier. A week before that fire, where she found Louie, I asked her to marry me.”
“Neither of you ever said-“
“Why would I tell anyone? It was humiliating enough as it was. She said no. Said we were too busy and she liked where we were, which was nowhere. I knew she meant that being on Truck 81 meant more to her than being my wife did. Who was I supposed to tell that to? All her friends at work? Why? So they could…” Matt shook his head. “I loved her, I loved her so much that I was blind to the fact that she never loved me as much as she loved what I could do for her, or more than her career, or her next big project. When I wasn’t useful, or I had feelings, thoughts that weren’t aligned with hers, I was easy for her to just…push me out of her life so she could go after what she wanted.”
“She loved you, Matt. I know she did.”
“She said she did, not sure she lived up to what she said. She turned me down one week, then asks to foster a kid with me the next week. I said hey what happened to being too busy, so she moved out, basically stopped speaking to me, and everyone told me it was my fault, I was supposed to support her no matter what. Great, confirmation my feelings matter for sh*t. So I did. I called in favors to get him placed with her. I offered my place to her and Louie, she turned me down, until I groveled properly for maybe thinking if she was too busy to marry me she was too busy to be a parent to a kid with special needs because of his truly sh*tty start in life. She moves back in, lot easier to do the fostering thing if she can get me to do it with her, right? She’s fine with us just being Mommy and Matt to Louie for months, then adoption comes along and because her being single makes her a weaker candidate for adoption, boom, we get married.” Matt sounded angry, but a low-burn sort of anger that told her that he’d been simmering over this for a long time, possibly since it happened, definitely since Gabby left. “I had wanted to marry her for years, I wanted to be a dad and a husband so badly, so I was stupidly happy for about…ten hours. Then we lost Louie, and I stopped…being necessary in her life. Part of being married is being a partner, a spousal partner. I never had that. I didn’t see it at the time, everyone was always so quick to remind me how lucky I was to have Gabby in my life, and I felt that way too, that I had no chance of ever being good enough for her, so no matter what I just kept trying to be more for her, better for her, all about her, like I could earn it somehow, I’d matter, my feelings would matter, if I could just align myself to her closely enough, the way I was supposed to if I wasn’t selfish, and it took me until…”

“Until what, Matt?” She prompted, once he was silent for a few moments.
“Until you and me had been together a little while, really, to see that I had needs she couldn’t ever meet, because she didn’t think I was supposed to have needs beyond her happiness. That’s not marriage, Sylvie. That’s not partnership. She wanted me to…I don’t know, but it never felt like I mattered in that marriage. I didn’t want to get witnesses to that, it’d have to be her friends, at 51, and so the tribunal really ended up focusing on two Catholics who purposefully did not follow the forms for a valid marriage, but to me, the other was more important. In the eyes of the Church, I was never married to her. Of course, I was, legally and emotionally, and I’m not saying it doesn’t count as an important part of my life or that I can or even want to forget about it or ignore it. Just that…f*ck, for once, someone, even if it was just a tribunal, finally backed me up that I have some damned value in a relationship besides being a crutch or sperm donor.”
“I…” She didn’t even know exactly what to say to that. It was a relief to know he wasn’t trying to ignore or act like his marriage with Gabby had never happened, but she hadn’t really known how much bitterness over it he held in.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…I know she was your best friend. I shouldn’t have dumped all that on you.”
“No, Matt.” She took the opportunity of a red light to grab his hand, and pull him towards her for a soft kiss. “It wasn’t great to hear, and I’m still working through, processing all of it, but I want you to ‘dump’ your feelings on me, okay? You listen to me talk about mine all the time.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like you’re talking about how awful Severide is or something.”
“I already knew she wasn’t a great wife to you. She wasn’t always a great best friend, either, you know. She is a good person, but she’s self-involved and self-centered, not…I don’t know, she just runs roughshod over people nearest her.”
“Every time she cut me out it felt like she was telling me I mattered to her less than whatever it was she was doing: I mattered less than Louie, okay, fair enough, he was her kid, I’m supposed to rank below that but not before he’s her kid. She knew him for five minutes and me for five years, but she dumped me for a chance to foster him. Then that last year, it seemed like every other week it was something. Her dad, okay, I guess I rank below her family, because I’m not her family, she told me that, – her dad was more important to her than me because I wasn’t in enough of a crisis for her. I kind of understood that, her dad was in crisis, so it hurt but you move on and you suck it up, like when you scraped your knee as a kid but you kept playing, just rub some spit and dirt on it, right?”
“That is so unhygienic.” Sylvie cringed. “Please tell me you didn’t actually treat open wounds that way.”
“I’m pretty sure we just covered that I’m not supposed to lie to you.” Matt was smiling again, though, even if it was a small smile. The smile dropped after a moment. “Then Bria happened, and that was her and Severide both telling me I didn’t care about that girl, that I don’t care enough about victims, basically that I’m a heartless bastard. That was hard to hear, to know that I was so distant that the people who were closest to me thought I didn’t care, so I tried to be better, more present, less distant. Again. All on me. It didn’t matter that she barely spoke to me. It didn’t matter that she knew I was worried she was too invested, that she’d get hurt like she did with Louie. My fault for being a bastard. I deserved to be lied to by my wife. At least she never lied and said she was ‘sorry’.” Matt scoffed. “She did, after the mess with Cordova. Basically told me it was my fault she never told me about him, because apparently I’m also the jealous, petty, vindictive type who’d punish him for a short relationship with Gabby before I ever even met her. She apologized for not telling me, but somehow, it all came back around to it being my fault for making her feel insecure, like she couldn’t tell me. If I was a better husband, she could tell me things.”
“I never looked at it like that.” Sylvie had to admit that, she’d mostly only ever looked at it, heard about it, from Gabby’s point of view. “To be fair, when I heard it from her, it sounded more like she just didn’t think it was necessary to hurt you or worry you.”
“Why would her having seen some guy before she knew me hurt me, or worry me? She must’ve dated a bunch of guys before me, hell, she dated Mills in the house, I was never weird or jealous about that.” Matt looked honestly confused. “It’s not like she was still…oh. That explains it. Wow. Okay, yeah. Now it hurts a bit.”
“Huh? Can you have some more of that conversation with yourself out loud so I can follow?”

“The only reason it would’ve hurt me to know she had been with Cordova was if she still felt attracted to him or had some sort of feelings for him. He clearly still had feelings for her. So, in typical Gabby style, if she lied to me about it, she didn’t have to deal with my feelings.”

“She said she wanted to avoid drama.”
“What drama? Am I a dramatic guy?” Matt asked. “If she’d told me about it, I wouldn’t have cared – at all. I knew she wasn’t exactly a virgin, and God knows I wasn’t either. At the time, I wasn’t at all worried that she was going to leave me. I should’ve been, it turns out, but hey, one more time of Matt Casey being an utter f*cking idiot is no surprise.”
“I hate that.” She bit out, unable to stifle it anymore.

“What?”
“The way you talk about yourself. I hate it. You run yourself down more than anyone else ever could, I swear to God, and it makes me want to hit you. Because I love you, Matt Casey, and I want to punch people who call you an idiot and say mean things about you – even when it’s you.”
“I think…that’s violently sweet, but can you wait to punch me when you’re not driving?”
“Maybe that’s why Gabby didn’t want to tell you. You twist things around until it’s your fault and it makes the people who love you feel about a millimeter tall somehow, because then I feel like it’s my fault for not loving you enough that you see how amazing you are. I haven’t talked to Gabby – except at Molly’s and Cruz’s reception – in years, but I have talked to Kelly.”
“Severide? What does he have to do with-“
“He loves you, and you love him, and neither of your penises is going to fall off if you say it, you know.”

“I know that. It’s just…guys don’t just say it like that.” Matt shrugged. “I don’t know why you’re bringing him into this.”

“He feels like he’s failed you. Because you act like no one loves you, like you don’t know he, we, would have your back no matter what. So, part of being your partner and loving the stuffing out of you and doing my job, Matt, I think you need therapy. Because I can’t live with you for the next sixty or so years of marriage-“
“You think I’m gonna live to be 98?”
“Not if you don’t stop pissing me off. 39 might be a stretch.”

“Okay.” Matt held up his hands, signaling a retreat he couldn’t actually make.

“I want you to consider therapy, Matt. Promise me you’ll think about it. Because you don’t cope well and I get that you had to cope with a lot of crappy things, some of it really early in life, with no real support structure, so you kind of maladjusted but I can’t live with you hating the man I love, okay?”

“I’ll think about it. I’m not promising to go.” Matt warned her. “But I’ll think about it. I just want you to know, I don’t hate the man you love. I hate the man I let myself become when Gabby loved me. And maybe I need some help to deal with that part. But you, Sylvie, the man I am with you…I like that Matt. I want to be that Matt for the rest of my life. That’s why I put that ring on your finger. I told you, you show me the way out of the storm, to a safe harbor, hell, you are the safe harbor.”
“If we weren’t in the middle of Chicago traffic right now, you would so be getting laid for that.”
“Never thought I’d hope for a red light, so I can kiss you.”
“Hold that thought. We’re like ten minutes from home now.”

Chapter 8: Aintin Jo

Chapter Text

The day they were going out to Mount Greenwood (where she’d never actually been before, it wasn’t exactly a centrally-located neighborhood within Chicago) to meet Matt’s Aunt Jo, or however he pronounced it that wasn’t quite aunt, he also had to go to headquarters to meet his lawyer and the CFD’s lawyers, and then with his lawyer to meet with Anderson’s lawyers. Sylvie was going along, mostly because by the time they got done with all the legal stuff, Matt wanted to head straight out to the party and it was a lot more efficient than driving to pick her up. He insisted that he was driving her there, she was not just joining him out there. Besides, they were getting married in just under a month, so he wanted her along for this legal stuff even if right now they had basically no legal standing as a couple. Negotiations were complete, this was just a final settlement and signing, she was told.

“Hey, change of plans, We’re meeting Anderson’s lawyers first.” Matt announced as he read an email he’d just gotten on his phone. “CFD after lunch.”
“This is going to take until lunch?” What could possibly take so long to sign some paperwork, Sylvie wondered.

“It’s already ten o’clock.” Matt reasoned. “And the lawyers have to inform me of everything, do all the diligence stuff, it’s a lot of pro forma stuff. We go do it, I sign it, it’s all over but the pay-off.”
“It’s not a pay-off.” Sylvie reminded him.

“Oh, it totally is.” Matt replied as he got into the driver’s seat of his truck. “Anderson and Gayan wanted a reduction in charges, which meant I had to agree to that, DA left it up to me this time since Anderson decided to break his last agreement within a week.”
“What does that mean? You dropped the charges?”
“f*ck no. I dropped a couple of the charges from felonies down to misdemeanors – each of them only had one felony now – and I agree to a mutual non-disclosure non-defamation clause. They can’t say anything to me, about me, or about the cases, and I can’t say anything to them, about them, or about the cases. Which suits everyone, I think.”
“Wait, I knew the felony for Anderson, but what about Gayan? I thought she pled that to a misdemeanor.”

“On advice of my attorney, I decided to press charges for aggravated battery. Class 3 Felony, but I agreed to get rid of the ‘sexual’ part of the battery charge. Basically, if you really nosed around in the records to try to find dirt on her, like some society asshole might do I guess, it reads like she hit me instead of grabbing my ass, which due to its nature might not cause serious harm but is considered a battery in that situation.”
“And Anderson’s charges?”
“Can’t leave the sex out of that one, but in return for some consideration, the charges may have been rewritten to fail to include a gender term for the victim.”
“So if any of his society types dig around, he doesn’t have to admit he was harassing a guy.”
“Yep. Man wants to pretend he’s straight. I suspect half of the people he’s worried about already know, he can’t be that damned discrete given what he did to me.” Matt shrugged. “For once, I am actually okay with being bought off. If the expense of it is the necessary deterrent, I’ll work with that. Oh, and they had to surrender every device they own to remove any images of me. With the cloud and everything, I don’t know how much good that will do, but…at least it should be kept quiet now. I hope.”

Even with Matt’s conversation on the way over to the law offices, she was not prepared for the actual sum being discussed. She had read online that most harassment charges were capped at $300,000 for an employer the size of the CFD, which was still a lot of money really, but Matt’s lawyer – Scott – he was talking about 1.5 million dollars. Million dollars. She couldn’t even imagine it. Matt would have well over a million dollars. 1.5 million dollars. It was inconceivable. She'd known Anderson was wealthy, but he must be really wealthy to fork over that much for a lawsuit to be kept quiet. It wasn't like he was a politician or someone who needed a good public image.

“So, Matt, if you sign what we’ve negotiated here, you get that money over time in installments, not at once that you can put in investments that can return higher yields. These sorts of things are usually for malpractice or personal injury cases, but Anderson was willing to pay more in this way – I won’t bore you with the insurance-based details. Basically you get the million spread out over the next twenty-five years with this annuity. It’s hardly going to let you retire, comes out to about sixty grand a year, but as it is an annuity it's tax-free income in Illinois.”
“I don’t want to retire.” Matt shook his head. “Once I get the money each year, I can do with it whatever I want, right?”
“Yeah, you can invest it in anything, spend it on a vacation, whatever. You’ll get the first payment as soon as this processes and my fees are taken out. You’re clear on that, right?”
“Yeah, yeah – the check goes to your office first, you deduct your fees, send me an itemized bill, which I’ve already seen pretty much, and the rest of that first payment is mine. Your fees are pretty damned reasonable, by the way, Scott.”
“Ah, don’t give me any kind of halo.” Scott laughed. “Your case was easy – your friends in the Intelligence Unit handed me everything I needed to just file stuff, so discovery hours were negligible. You should have the first payment in five or six weeks. Then pretty much each year right at this time.”

“With the annuity, I can leave that as part of my estate, right?”
“Yes. Your wife,” Scott nodded at Sylvie, “and any children, or any surviving heir, can inherit the annual payments. Make sure you account for that in a will - who's the trustee for any children, stuff like that. Unless you want the money to go to your mother or your sister, who become your automatic heirs for instance if Sylvie co-deceases.”

“And if they use any photos or manipulated images or anything again, what happens?” Sylvie asked. She was really more worried about that than the money.

“They get arrested, again. It's a separate offense, not double jeopardy.” Scott answered solemnly. “You call me and we sue them again, for even more money. It also breaks the NDA and we can go as public as we want. Rumor is Anderson is gearing up for a run for some sort of political office, no way he wants this coming back up. He’s an idiot for letting it get this far if that’s true.”
“I don’t have to speak to either of them about this?”
“Nope. Their attorneys will come in, talk you through it again from their perspective, and then you sign it. Standard procedure in these cases is to request, as I did, that the victim and the harasser are not in the same room together.

“Alright, babe, you ready to be married to a millionaire?” Matt smiled at her, it was a tight smile though, with little satisfaction or any real enjoyment in it.

The meeting with the CFD was anticlimactic after that. She’d wondered how Matt had sued the CFD and it hadn’t gotten out, no rumors around the department at all. Then she went to the meeting. Grissom was there, and several other members of brass, including Huffhines and the chief from Legal. She couldn’t help boggling when she heard the settlement amount from the CFD. Matt had settled with the department for $5,000. 1.5 million dollars from the Andersons and $5,000 from the CFD, who technically had failed to supervise Gayan and protect their employee. After everyone had signed the agreement and the lawyers had left, Grissom came around the table to shake Matt’s hand.

“Thank you, Captain Casey. You could have handled this very differently, I know that. The department failed to handle your complaints and we were liable for a lot more than you just settled for.”
“Better training for handling cases is what I really wanted, you agreed to that.” Matt shrugged.

“Our training was too limited, we focused logically on men harassing women, given the demographics of the department but that clearly left a gap in how to help men deal with harassment. Whether that’s from a woman or a man. We will be addressing that.” Sylvie could not remember this guy from HR’s name for the life of her, and his nametag was annoyingly missing from his uniform.

“I know you will.” Matt nodded. “You just signed a legal agreement forcing it for one thing. And I trust Commissioner Grissom's word, and the intentions of the CFD.”
“I appreciate your loyalty to the department.” Grissom replied. “I’ve known you since you were a skinny recruit trailing in after Kelly on a firehouse visit. You’re smart enough to know you could’ve negotiated for any job you wanted in this department, and a substantial payout.”
“I like my job, and I like my house. And it’s too late for me to change my mind, you don’t have to blow smoke up my ass, Commissioner. Fix the problems so it doesn’t happen again, that’s all I want. Well, I appreciate the free furlough for our honeymoon, too.”
“What?” Sylvie hadn’t heard anything about that.

“The settlement.” Matt explained, but saw she was still confused. “The settlement has a cash value stated, but it isn’t cash at all. The CFD budget is tight enough I don’t want any cash that could be used for new equipment or something. Hell, that’s about the cost of a new SCBA for a guy who needs it. Every dollar I sue for, I take away from a better use somewhere else. I only sued the department at all because it turned out I can’t sue the former employee personally without also filing against the employer, so I couldn’t sue Gayan without suing the CFD. Nothing in the law about settlement values.” Matt shrugged again. “So, I figured out how much we were ‘spending’ in furlough days to go on our honeymoon and CFD agreed to ‘pay’ my settlement in extra days off instead of cash. So, we don’t have to use our normal furlough days for our honeymoon next month. There's also a 'no-trade' clause in there - if CFD wants me out of 51, I have certain veto powers over a move.”
“You are kind of sneaky.” Sylvie couldn’t help laughing lightly. “I like you a little devious, actually.”

“Kelly was right about you.” Grissom patted Matt’s shoulder as he passed. “You’re almost too upright for your own good, Casey. Glad to have you with the CFD, though.”

Matt didn’t say much on the way out to Mount Greenwood. It wasn’t an unpleasant sort of quiet, just like he was contemplating things. She got the impression it had been some time since he’d actually been out here or maybe it was just that the morning had drudged up some of the unpleasant memories of recent months. He pulled up outside a row of cute little bungalow houses. The street was parked kind of full on both sides. He didn’t get out of the truck right away.

“The house is up the street a little, but there won’t be any closer parking. Every year, Aintin Jo and Bill have this party. Uh, how much do you know about Northern Ireland?”
“It’s British, unlike the rest of Ireland. That’s about it.”
“Aintin Jo grew up in Derry, pretty much the border with the Republic of Ireland, and the Troubles sort of started there. The Troubles is the, well, terroristic really, semi-war between Irish and Protestant paramilitaries, well, and the actual British Army. It’s complicated.” Matt sort of shrugged. “There won’t be a quiz, just know that if anyone says something like ‘f*cking Protestants’ please don’t take offense. The party is always held this time of year to remember the Battle of the Bogside, some of Jo’s cousins were injured there, and her family knew at least one of the young men killed on Bloody Sunday, too. You don’t need to know Irish history, I promise.”
“She does know…I’m not Irish or Catholic?”
“You could be Irish. You’re adopted.” Matt shrugged, but he smiled at her too. “Just tell her you wouldn’t claim the pride of being Irish, she’ll love you. She’s going to like you anyway. And if anyone is a bastard, let me know. I mean it.”
“Is that likely?”
“Depends on who’s here, and who’s drinking too much.” Matt looked a little apologetic. “We should be alright, not planning to stay late, we have shift tomorrow.”

Matt knocked, but did so as he was opening the front door. Of course, given the number of people in the house, it wasn’t exactly an invasion of any sort of privacy. He’d not gotten two steps inside the door when a teenage girl shouted over her shoulder, back into what Sylvie assumed was the kitchen, “Mom – our Matt’s here!” just before she hugged Matt tightly.

“Roisin, how’re you? Aintin Jo’s letting you put color in your hair now?”
“It’s green, and it’ll wash out before school starts.” The girl explained with a laugh. She turned her attention to Sylvie. “Hi, I’m Roisin.”
“Sylvie.”
“You better take her through to Mom. Nice to meet you, Sylvie!” The girl practically darted off, to a small pack of giggling girls about her own age. Matt took her hand, pulling her behind him into the kitchen where he was promptly stopped by a woman probably in her fifties or so, who looked a little like a slightly heavier Maureen O’Sullivan, Sylvie thought, from those old Tarzan movies, the really old ones.

“It’s about time, boyo, that you bring your skinny ass back ‘round. You’re a looker, you are, but not rich nor looker enough to go ditching us now.”
“I was ‘round a few weeks ago to fix your garage door, Aintin Jo.” Matt reminded with a smile.

“Don’t you go rollin’ your eyes at me, or I’ll give you a smack you deserve.”
“You’re going to give my fiancée a bad impression, Aintin Jo.”
“If she’s taking you on, she’s had bad enough luck, hasn’t she? This must be herself, then. Jo Gallagher.” The woman stuck out her hand, and Sylvie shook it. There was a definite accent, which Sylvie had prepared herself for but she was a little worried that she might misunderstand something said to her.

“Sylvie Brett.”
“Soon enough be Casey – got the invitation few weeks back, and thought well, our Matt’s in a hurry, isn’t he? Can see why, though, he’s got himself a fine one, best lock her down quick.”
“Thank you.” Sylvie thought that was the best response to what she was pretty sure was a compliment.

“You will be taking Casey won’t ye? None of this post-modern bullsh*t ‘bout keepin’ yer name?”
“I was planning to take it. Probably not at work, so no one is yelling out for two Caseys when we’re on the same call. But personally, yes.”
“Married in a church this time, too, Matt, I see.”
“I wouldn’t dare invite you and himself if I didn’t.” Matt laughed. “Is he outside?”

“Give it a minute out back.” Jo shook her head. “Gerry McRae is out there, but he’s not staying.”
“Good idea.” Matt nodded. He turned to Sylvie, and looked a little sheepish. “Gerry and I were here at the same time, well…what, Jo, about two months overlap?”
“Aye, two months, and two months of such fighting you’ve never seen, Sylvie.” Jo confirmed. The other women in the kitchen nodded along. Apparently this was a well-known story. “Our Matt trailed him for his mouth a few times it was – you’s a fierce skinny little sh*t, Matt Casey.”
“He was a dick to you. And he shoved Saiorse. She was two.”
“That he did. Still, he comes ‘round for the party every year.”
“I’m on shift sometimes, Aintin Jo.” Matt defended himself.
“Sure enough excuse. Sylvie, this here’s my sister Cathy, and my other sister Mary, and my sister-in-law Mary.”

“Nice to meet all of you.”
“Matt! It’s broken!” A call from a voice Sylvie couldn’t possibly recognize sounded like it was coming from…downstairs? How could someone in the basem*nt even know Matt was here?

“I need a better noun than ‘it,’ Ciaran!” Matt turned to shout down the stairs.

“The door on the bathroom down here, it’s been broken for two days!”

“Right, I’m going to go see if I can fix that. Sylvie, you can come with, or you can…make yourself at home up here. Aintin Jo will tell you only the non-embarrassing stories from my senior year of high school.”
“Hardly, I’ll tell ye the best stories, Sylvie dear. Have a seat, and would ye like some wine? Ye ain’t in a hurry for some other reason for a wedding, are ye?”
“No, Aintin Jo, she’s not pregnant!” Matt called from halfway down the stairs already.

“Ye can’t blame me, our Matt’s been wanting wains since he was living here.”

“Aye, built for it that one is, Sylvie.” One of the sisters, Sylvie was pretty sure it was the Mary who was a sister not a sister-in-law, added.

“Not yet. After the wedding.” Sylvie admitted. “We’re planning to start a family anyway, as much as you can plan that.”
“True that. You think I have five because I was good at planning?” Cathy laughed. “Between us, we’ve got twenty-one, just the four of us, not counting the ones like our Matt that come through Jo’s house over the years.”
“I’m after you wanting to know that story, don’t ye, Sylvie?” Jo asked.

“Matt only said you took him in for his senior year. I know his dad died, and everything, during his sophom*ore year.”
“His da grew up with my husband, ‘round here in Mount Greenwood. South Side Irish, he was, Greg Casey.” Jo nodded. “Moved up to the north for work, raised his kids up there. Didn’t know a thing about it until summer of ’99, when Patricia Leahy called – she knew ‘em both, my Bill and his da, from elementary school – and said Greg Casey’s boy needed a place. So, my husband, of course he says sure we’ll take a good Irish Catholic lad.”

“Your Bill didn’t actually like Greg Casey, though.” Cathy put in.

“Did as a boy.” Jo disagreed. “Didn’t like the grown man, but still, not leaving a good lad like Matt in the system, are we? He was in some group home for 'troubled boys' - only trouble our Matt had was no one listening to him. Patricia’s a social worker, Sylvie, well, she was, long retired now. Brought him down, helped us get him registered for high school for the fall. Couldn’t afford the tuition, had to send him to public school.”
“And you see what happens. His own parents let him in public high school, and you see.” Mary, the sister-in-law Mary, spoke up. She had a very distinctively Chicago accent, unlike the Irish accents of the others. “He brings home a Protestant.”

“How’d Matt end up in the system? He said he lived with an aunt and uncle his junior year?”
“Don’t know the whole story, never could get it out of him, or Patricia.” Jo shook her head in clear disapproval. “He’d been sent from pillar to post, that one, couple family friends and three sets of relatives, I think. All washed their hands of him, for whatever their reasons. Too much fighting, not enough room, Matt said one of ‘em just said he ate too much. Imagine turning out your own kin, a boy like that.”

“Well, there was a bit of scandal.” Cathy hedged.

“Aye, and ye jerk a knot in his tail, ye don’t kick him out. He never give us a minute’s trouble like that, our Matt. Needed a firm hand is all, and a bit of love, and a lot of listenin'.” Jo argued. She turned her attention back to Sylvie. “Matt ever tell ye about his junior prom?”
“He has actually. But he said no one found out.”
“Patricia said his aunt did – don’t think she told Matt she knew he’d gotten tangled up with an older woman. Told him it was ‘bout the fighting or the like. So he come here. My Bill got him in his club, got him sorted ‘round with that temper. One thing the Irish learn is how to hold in and hold up under insult.”

“Taught him to keep it zipped up, too. As you said.” Cathy pointed out. “Boy with a face like that, I was worried ‘bout him, I was. My own Sarah had the biggest crush on him.”

“Aye, and my girls’ friends still do.” Jo laughed lightly. “Never seen so many girls want to come to a birthday party as Saoirse’s sixteenth, our Matt came ‘round for it. Newly single.”

“He never mentioned that.” Sylvie grinned, thinking of how many girls must’ve had crushes on Matt. He was very handsome, but also very safe, and teenage girls would love that. “And I’ve never even seen a picture of Matt from high school. He lost everything in that fire, and I don’t know how much he even had before that.”
“Mary, go fetch the album would ye?” Jo asked, and her sister headed back into the living room.

“Don’t think he ever figured out Sarah had a crush.” Cathy was smiling broadly. “She was eleven, he was eighteen, he broke her heart by dating girls his own age. Quite a few of them, too.”

“Different girl every third week it seemed.” Jo nodded in agreement. “He never was serious about any one of them I don’t think. Oblivious to those girls at Saoirse’s party too, oh, but what craic that was.”

“Ah, here he is.” Mary brought an open photo album back into the kitchen. “Look at that face. Should’ve been a model, not a firefighter.”

“Can you imagine, Jo, your Matt modeling?” Cathy started the laughter, and everyone else – including Sylvie – quickly joined in. Matt as a model was a ridiculous idea. He hated having his photo taken, and being fussed over, asked to change clothes a hundred times or pose, or any of it, he’d crawl out of his skin over that. Even before.

Matt had eventually fixed whatever was wrong with the bathroom door in the basem*nt, while Sylvie had mostly felt like she’d been introduced to a hundred people as ‘our Matt’s intended’ which had earned either disbelieving looks, jealous looks, or just plain odd looks. Very few of the people there had accents to match Jo and her sisters, most were pretty plainly Chicago born-and-raised, but there was still a lot of conversation about Ireland, its partition, and the evils of the Protestants in Ireland. There were also a lot of questions about what she did, and what Matt did. They all knew he was a firefighter, but wanted stories. Sylvie was content to spend most of her time locked into Matt’s side, letting him try to direct conversation around the fact that Sylvie had no shared history with anyone here and trying to tell sanitized versions of stories they’d half-heard about (like how Matt earned that medal for valor, either of them, actually Sylvie had never heard how Matt won the Carter Harrison award in 2007 and he dodged telling it here today, too). There were some people here Matt didn’t even know, kids Jo had had through the house in the years since he’d left that he’d just missed meeting somehow or friends that had heard about Matt but not met him. She had managed to catch introductions to all five of Jo’s kids: Connor, Saoirse, Niamh, Ciaran, and Roisin – only the three eldest were old enough that they’d been alive when Matt lived here twenty years earlier, but all seemed to consider Matt some sort of family. Matt wandered off just before they planned to leave, apparently going to get in a round of playing tag or something with some of the younger kids. Sylvie followed him out into the backyard.

“So, you’ve taken on Matt Casey.” Jo’s husband, Bill, appeared at her side with a guy she recognized as having been with Bill all day, but she couldn’t remember his name. Too many names in too short a time, she had given up pretty quickly except for Jo's family. “He’s a good man.”
“Definitely a keeper.” Sylvie agreed easily. “You know, you two are pretty much the only men to talk to me today, I mean, besides an introduction. It’s sort of strange.”
“Not strange at all.” The other man replied with a chuckle. “Jo introduced you to everyone as Matt’s fiancée. No one in this neighborhood will ever bother you at all.”
“He can’t be that well liked. He lived here for a year when he was in high school.”
“Well liked?” Bill laughed this time. “Sylvie, he’s liked well enough, but these boys ‘round here, they’re scared of him.”
“Scared? Of Matt?”
“Damn right.” The other man, she really wished she could remember his name, answered. “Matt Casey’s things never get touched. He didn’t lock his truck, I bet. He could leave his wallet sitting in it.”

“But, why?”
“Suppose the details of why doesn’t matter so much anymore.” Bill’s statement and raised eyebrows clearly cut off the other man’s response. “It’s an Irish neighborhood. He stayed clean, stayed out of the local business, and the simplest answer is he earned a reputation as the toughest son-of-a-bitch you’ll ever meet: he’s not afraid to bleed to make a point.”

“Add in that Frank Doherty owes his youngest boy’s life to Matt Casey and he and his are untouchable ‘round here.”

“Doherty? I know that…Charlie!” Sylvie struck on it. “Charlie Doherty, I met him a couple months ago, Matt said they went to school together. I’ll have to ask him about that story now.”
“Good luck with that closed-mouth son-of-a-bitch.” The other man scoffed. “Man could save the life of the president and the Pope himself and he’d never say a word.”

“Oh, I have my ways of getting information out of him.”
“I’m sure you do.” Bill laughed heartily.

Chapter 9: Moving In

Chapter Text

At the end of August, they got their certificate of occupancy for the main floors of the house. The basem*nt apartment had been cleared for occupancy months ago. Obviously they wouldn’t have had Otis move in until it was legal to do so. Not just because that would be mean to Otis, Matt could lose his license as a contractor for trying to get around procedures and permitting. She thought he could anyway. Not that Matt would do that. She had been so busy with wedding stuff that she had left the house in Matt’s capable hands, except some of the major pieces of furniture which she’d ordered. Otis was ‘paying rent’ by taking deliveries on the days he wasn’t on shift, since Matt was busily balancing work on the house with paying jobs because summer was his busy season and he didn’t want to turn down referred customers (who would then refer him on again). This sometimes meant he worked at the house until 9 or 10 pm after a full day on another site. She didn’t love that he was so busy, but it would be worth it once they were in their house. She knew it would be. It just wasn’t fun to be planning a move while planning a wedding.

They’d set the menu for the reception, which was more complicated than she’d imagined mostly because Matt had decided to have the party to end all parties. She was refusing to think about how much money he was spending. He had, at least, confirmed that he’d combined a wedding account he’d had set aside since he’d gotten engaged to Gabby (they hadn’t used it – they’d never had a real reception or wedding) with the first settlement check from the Anderson/Gayan mess. She’d agreed with him that it felt like a perfect sort of revenge to spend that money on their wedding and honeymoon. So, they’d had to pick six hors d’oeuvres, which by itself took quite a while, finally settling on caponata, caprese crostini, boeuf bourguignon bites, pork belly with apple, an artichoke and goat cheese crisp, and mini Reubens (Matt insisted the Herrmanns would eat their weight in Reubens if allowed). Then they had a ‘Cape Cod’ chef’s station, mostly an excuse to let Matt have a couple different kinds of crab to eat – the shrimp, oysters, and other seafood people would eat, too, of course. During the hors d’oeuvres hour, there’d be an open bar with a couple specially-made signature co*cktails just for their wedding. Sylvie was pretty sure no one in Fowlerton would even know what to make of something that fancy.

Then there was the meal to pick, which was five courses. The first course was a soup, guests had to pick either vegetarian (tomato basil) or not-vegetarian (Italian wedding). Then a salad course, which for a rare stroke of simplicity they’d opted for one kind of salad for everyone: the roasted asparagus salad. Then an intermezzo, a choice of lemon or passion fruit sorbet. Sylvie was pretty sure half their guests were going to have to Google stuff to fill out their RSVPs – Mom had called to ask what an intermezzo was supposed to be. The main courses were again either vegetarian or not: a wild-mushroom ravioli that Matt had confirmed three times was vegan (Christie was the only known vegan on the list, but he had insisted that she not feel singled out with a ‘special’ meal for her – or be unable to eat) and a duet for the omnivores consisting of a filet mignon and roasted chicken. If anyone still had room after all that, then it was time for desserts, a vegan-friendly fruit salad that Matt had paid extra to have because he was not going vegan-friendly at all on his cake. Their cake. Although they could have up to four flavors in their cake, they’d opted for just two alternating flavors in the tiers: chocolate with chocolate cream and white buttermilk with salted caramel cream (of course it was all covered in white fondant which could then be decorated). Sylvie might have tipped the scales on that last one at the tasting, whispering to Matt that she wanted to keep a piece for their wedding night because she thought (and she honestly did) that the perfect flavor combination would be eating that salted caramel cream buttermilk cake right off of Matt’s abs. She still had visions of doing just that. Matt had said something to Dillon, who’d grinned but nodded along, so she suspected Matt may have arranged an extra piece to be set aside for them. Dillon, who came across so utterly proper, was impossible to shock it seemed. Then again, he had been doing wedding planning for quite a few years now, either as an assistant or now one of the head planners at the Drake.

After all that planning, there was still transportation to sort out for everyone. Matt had decided on party buses for the guests between the wedding and the reception. The out-of-town guests would have an hour-long architectural tour of downtown Chicago, with a couple stops at famous photo ops to give the wedding party ninety minutes for their own photographic tour of the city. Local guests were having a 90-minute microbrewery tour. Basically, Matt planned to get people really drunk by the end of their reception, given there was an open bar for four hours after the dinner, and that co*cktail hour before. Sylvie loved the bus tour idea, though, since a lot of people from Fowlerton really didn’t visit Chicago very often (if ever). Of course, there were limos for the wedding party. She was glad Matt had made the transportation arrangements though, because she took care of the flowers and centerpieces and linens. Matt was a wonderful man, but his taste in napkins ran from plain white to plain white. Function over form. He crafted beautiful home interiors, but rarely anything overly elaborate. It just wasn’t his way.

They’d settled on a furniture budget for the house, and Sylvie had been shopping like mad. She had a bedroom set, of course, but she knew it wasn’t really Matt’s taste. It was going in the upstairs guest room. Matt had nothing. He had some clothes. That was it. He didn’t even have towels or sheets, he’d just been using the spares at Kelly’s since the fire. Her things, she knew, like her furniture, was not really what Matt would choose for himself. It was a little girlie, and he’d never complain if she wanted to use that in the master, but she figured they had the money so why not get new stuff for their new life together? Otis was there to bring the boxes in from the porch as they were delivered and to let the guys in to deliver large pieces of furniture. So she picked out an entirely new bedroom set for them, including a new mattress of course. She made Matt sit down and help her pick out new sheets and comforter. She picked out towels for the master bath – her things would go in the upstairs hall bath for now. She picked out a sofa for the living room, and chairs, and a coffee table, book shelves, everything they’d need. Matt had actually picked the dining table – he’d found it at the salvage place while he was looking for something else for a client, texted her a picture, and she’d told him to buy it because she loved it. She luckily had a lot of kitchen stuff, but she knew once they moved in she was going to find things that were missing that she needed to buy. She bought tea towels and potholders and trivets that matched the new kitchen. Her silverware would do for now, and her plates and bowls and all of that stuff. She had no idea what they were going to put on the walls. They’d have to wait until they were actually living there to decide that, she figured. Basically, once Matt finished the place, he arranged movers for her stuff (in storage currently) and left the rest up to her. If she used that freedom to also buy him a few little presents, well, so what. He’d love sleeping in those satin boxers, she knew it. And if he got an entirely new drawer full of socks that was just because his were in sad condition. Frugality was well and good, but seriously, Matt – socks did not need to get two actual holes before being replaced. His underwear was just as bad. So she’d ordered some replacements there, too, and if she’d deviated from the black-gray-blue color scheme a little, he could just live with it.

Move-in day was, like Demo Day, a Firehouse 51 special. Furniture had been delivered but still had plastic on it. Rugs were still rolled up. Towels, sheets, pillows, all of it still in boxes. The upstairs television was still in its box. Everything was basically still in boxes. So everyone was coming over at 10 am to get everything set up, from the backyard straight through to the master bedroom. Except their clothes. Matt had insisted that they’d take care of their own closets and drawers. No one was going to push Matt’s boundaries with privacy right now. But he was happy to host a sort of move-in/house-warming party. It was going to end up over at Molly’s, they both knew that, but that was one of the planned-for side effects of living so close to the bar: when they were tired and wanted to go to bed (aka horny and wanted to christen their new bed, which Sylvie thought was the more likely end result of the night) they didn’t have to try to get anyone out of their house so they could do so. It was perfect.

She hadn’t been prepared for the house to buy them a house-warming gift, or to arrange for it to be delivered on move-in day. A massive beautiful outdoor sectional for the deck just appeared like magic, and she might have totally cried. It was perfect. Matt had thanked everyone, of course, but she’d hugged them all and gushed over how much she loved her family at 51, because Matt was the stoic and she was really not. They’d been meaning to get furniture for the deck, of course they had, but they hadn’t gotten around to it, yet. Then everyone had set to unpacking the rest of the house. All Sylvie really had to do was direct traffic – get the rugs down how she wanted and then the furniture in all the right spots in each room. She and Matt had done the master bedroom early, before anyone got there, so Matt was free to hands-on organize the kitchen while she took care of the other rooms. Matt had even planned a project for the kids: they were painting a “mural” on the wall of the garage that faced the house, basically a very modern-art design he’d had a friend of his (Sylvie hadn’t met this woman, but apparently she did murals and he’d met her years ago on a call) already outline on the wall with a number in each space to tell the kids what color it was supposed to be. He’d created a giant paint-by-number for the kids, who threw themselves into the project with enthusiasm, and a good deal of mess. And by kids she meant the five Herrmann kids, Terrence, Foster, Gallo, and Ritter (along with Ritter’s boyfriend, Eric) who were supposed to be supervising while Cindy and Donna worked on getting the raised gardens Matt had built in the backyard planted. Sylvie had fallen in love with his design for it right away. There was a vertical herb-garden up one of the new privacy fences (he also built two vertical flower gardens, and a beautiful rose trellis arch up over and along the narrow walkway from the back alley past the garage, which had no climbing roses on it yet, but someday, she imagined, it would look like the climbing roses at her grandmother’s) and then a very compact three-tiered place for her to grow some simple things like tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, whatever she wanted she supposed. She’d missed growing things, and Matt had built her a space to do that. Now, her friends were helping plant it.

The new wrought fencing for the front, which was much more period-appropriate for the façade of their house, meant that Sylvie had thought the front yard small as it might be also needed some form of decoration. So, after she’d gotten all the furniture placed where it should go, and everything out of plastic, out of boxes, out of whatever it was in and actually placed where it needed to be for them to live in the house, she moved her crew out to the front yard. More rapid-fire planting was done, and instead of looking like a construction project, the house looked like a home. The flowers needed some time to fill out, of course, but she knew they’d get some time before winter hit to get well-rooted. Well, the annuals in the flower boxes would have to be replaced of course each year, but that was part of the fun. Picking new colors or themes each year.

With everyone helping out, and a lot of pizza ordered in, the new house looked fantastic by 6 o’clock and everyone packed up, heading for Molly’s or in the case of Cindy, Donna, and the children, headed for home. Otis had gone over a couple hours ago to open Molly’s – he’d already done a lot just because he lived downstairs for another week or so. He’d found his new apartment and scheduled a move-in, now he was just waiting to reach the day his new landlord told him the place was ready. The best thing about it, from Sylvie’s point of view anyway, was that something had clearly happened on the days Matt worked over here because any weirdness or tension between Otis and Matt was long gone. The second best thing, again just in Sylvie’s own figuring, was that the rest of the house had actually gotten to see Casey’s construction skills for the first time. Oh, they’d seen him build basic structures, and they knew intellectually what he did for his side job, but few of them had actually seen his finishes or the whole effect of his work, how good he was at what he did. Well, they knew how good he was at what he did in his main job, of course. But she’d seen something in a few of the guys’ eyes today, not quite increased respect (they already respected the hell out of Matt) but maybe just an increased understanding of how hard he worked at everything he did. She didn’t think it was what Cindy had seen, when she’d pulled Sylvie aside after the short pre-unpacking tour of the house, and told her that the house showed how much Matt loved her – he’d put so much time and energy into their home, getting it all so perfect – and all Sylvie could do was nod and try not to cry.

Chapter 10: Christening

Chapter Text

They adjourned, as planned, to Molly’s. Chief didn’t stay long. Everyone else seemed to be there for the long haul of the evening. It was actually a little strange to think she was going home with Matt to the house, instead of the apartment. She had gotten used to the four of them in the one place, really. Now it was going to be just her and Matt. And Otis for another week, but he was in basically his own apartment downstairs. She worried it might seem too quiet. She’d gone from an apartment with Joe and Otis (and regularly Chloe and Lily around) to an apartment with Matt and Kelly and Stella. Of course, she was looking forward to starting their life together just the two of them. It was just going to be an adjustment. And she knew she was going to have to team up with Stella to make sure Kelly and Matt had plenty of guys’ nights. They’d lived together for almost two years after all – the third time in their friendship that they’d shared a place for substantial periods of time. Separating them would be an adjustment again.

She ‘bumped into’ Matt in the hallway to the bathrooms - he was apparently headed in as she was headed out. It wasn’t really all that crowded at Molly’s tonight, but enough that she could almost reasonably claim that was an accident. Not that there was any point in lying, she just wanted to corner him in a semi-private spot. She pushed him against the wall and kissed him firmly. His mouth opened against hers, and she pressed against him tightly as their tongues slid hotly against one another. Eventually, he pulled away, just enough to almost growl into her ear,

“If you keep rubbing against me like that, this is gonna be a very early night. It’s not nice to tease.”
“I’m not teasing. I’m foreshadowing.” Sylvie replied, running her hands up his back underneath his shirt, letting her fingernails just lightly scratch along the smooth surface of his skin, the way she knew he loved. Matt arched a little, and kissed her again, his right hand dropping from her waist to her ass to pull her still tighter against him once more. She could feel him starting to swell against her, and knew they really did need to stop now.

“Mm-hmm.” Sylvie pulled back from the kiss, and winked at him. “I’m just giving you a pretty good idea of what’s to come when we get home.”
“You’re always making me wait.” Matt shook his head in mock rebuke. “Luckily, I know you are definitely worth it.”

She pulled away from him, kissing him once more swiftly.

She quickly settled back at the table with Emily, Stella, Kelly, and Emily’s tarte du jour (as Matt called any and all of the people Foster brought around) whose actual name was Candice. As was usual, 51 was at different tables and the bar, but all sort of clustered in the same general area of Molly’s. Matt ended up at the bar for quite a while, talking to Herrmann and Mouch. Sylvie turned her attention back to the conversation at her table.

She was only slightly surprised to see a fresh glass of wine appear in front of her, maybe half an hour later, but she was more surprised when Matt pretty much picked her up from behind, arms around her waist, before taking her stool and sitting her basically on his lap. Granted, Molly’s was busy enough there was a shortage of stools, but this was a little forward for Matt. Not that she minded, really.

“You got any idea what you do to me?” Matt whispered in her ear, pulling her back tightly against his chest. She could hear the arousal in his voice and could feel the evidence of it against her ass as well. Oh, he wasn’t hard, but he was starting that way definitely.

“You are unbelievable.” She almost laughed, canting her head back to try to meet his eyes, though it was still a slightly awkward angle.

“What? My soon-to-be-wife is just…that…damn…sexy.” He trailed his lips over her neck, and his hands on her hips started to wander a bit as well.

“Yes, in my t-shirt and jeans, dusty and sweaty from moving in all day.”
“Mm.” He apparently disagreed with her sarcasm, though he kept his voice low. “I love these jeans, and the shirt is red. You know what red does to me.”
“Like a flag at a bull.” She chuckled, rolling her eyes though she knew he couldn’t see it. She knew red was his favorite color on her, but it honestly had not occurred to her when she got dressed. She liked teasing him a little though, and shifted about in his lap, pressing down against his crotch. She leaned back to whisper, “Definitely a bull.”

“Hey, you two.” Emily said loudly enough to get Sylvie’s attention, even with Matt still trailing kisses along her neck promisingly. “You got a nice new house across the street. You want a lap-dance, right next to me is not the place to do it.”

“Did I just manage to scandalize Emily Foster?” Sylvie laughed brightly.

“You’re my partner and he’s basically the boss of half the people in the bar. I don’t mind public affection, but it’s awkward at this point.”
“Not half.” Matt pointed out idly.

“What time is it?” Sylvie asked, turning Matt’s wrist to check his watch. She hadn’t worn her own. “We’ll finish this round, then call it a night. We have got a lot of errands to run tomorrow, the wedding is so close and I feel like there’s still a million things to do.”

“Uh-huh.” Stella could not possibly have put any more sarcasm into her tone. “You’re gonna take him home to sleep. Because you’re busy tomorrow.”
“Don’t act like you’re not going to enjoy the apartment all to yourselves.” Matt replied with a broad grin she could hear in his voice.

“Yeah, you’ll notice I’m not the one with my girl on my lap already.” Kelly laughed.

“Your loss, man.” Matt shot back, also laughing. He did, however, move his hands to wrap around her waist, holding her against him but at least he seemed content to wait for more until they were actually home. In their new house. That he’d completely renovated for them. God, she wanted him. She didn’t think she’d ever been more efficient about finishing a glass of wine - at least, not while trying to be discrete about being in a hurry.

It took them fifteen minutes after Matt tabbed out to get in the full rounds of goodbyes. She loved their friends, truly, but why did they all take so long to say goodbye? They were going to have work together in a little over 24 hours. It wasn’t exactly going to be a long parting. Either they were intentionally messing with her (well, her and Matt) or they were completely tragically oblivious to the fact that Sylvie was just about ready to jump Matt right there in Molly’s. She managed to hold off, though if she pressed herself any closer to him she was going to have to climb inside his clothes with him. His hand on her ass (he’d given up on her waist a while back now) was less than subtle but she didn’t actually mind. The incredibly short walk to their new house was welcome, but she was overcome as he opened the gate, and had to stop for just a second, tugging on his hand. She looked up at the house, restored to something much closer to what it must’ve looked like when it was built in the late Victorian era, and the new flowers and it looked so welcoming and homey and just like she’d imagined since he’d first told her he’d bought it.

“This is our home, Matt.” She said softly.

“Finally finished.” Matt agreed, but apparently he was less inclined to revel in the moment. He pulled her after him, shut the gate, and practically pushed her up the stairs to the front door. He pinned her up against the door while he unlocked it (she had a key, but he was faster apparently), and she took the chance to rub her ass into him. He groaned, but it didn’t impede his ability to get the door open and push her inside ahead of him. She barely got the locks thrown again before he had her spun back around and pushed up against the door, his mouth on hers. God, he was so overwhelming, her entire universe collapsed down to his mouth and his tongue and his body against hers. She somehow managed to get her purse on one of the hooks he’d hung by the door for that purpose, or jackets and hats, whatever, but mostly she just let him lift her feet from the floor, bringing her crotch into alignment with his as her legs wrapped around his hips. Somehow, without seeming to disconnect their mouths at all, both of their t-shirts made it over their heads. The door left her back, and Matt walked them into the living room. She ended up on her back on their new sofa, Matt between her legs and over her. He finally let her breathe properly, diving down instead to turn his oral attentions to any slightest bit of breast that was not covered by her bra. It only took a moment for him to clearly tire of that impediment, and her bra was gone somewhere, she might care where later. His mouth on her tit* felt so amazing that she almost missed his hands moving to her thighs, unwrapping her legs from around him. To her verbalized dismay, he backed off then. She might have complained more, but she realized he was just pulling back to take her shoes and socks off. Taking her own initiative, she quickly unzipped her jeans and started to shimmy out of them, raising her hips to shove them down. Matt took the hint and pulled from the ankle, and her jeans were tossed away a moment later. She knew that look on his face, and she got as good a grip as she could on his hair (why did he keep it so damned short – he had nice soft fluffy hair) and pulled hard.

“Not yet.”
“Babe-“
“Naked first.” She bargained, and his hands went to her underwear, the only article of clothes she was still wearing. She laughed lightly. “I meant you, Matt! Take your shoes and socks and pants off, Matt.”
“Oh.” He seemed a little surprised, like he’d almost forgotten he was still clothed or that she might actually want to remedy that situation. Given how tight his jeans had to be at this point, she didn’t know how he could’ve overlooked it. Still, he managed to shuck out of his own clothes quickly, and so she sacrificed herself and let him have his way. Okay, it was no sacrifice at all. She wondered, in the second she had of coherent thought, if other men loved giving oral sex as much as Matt did, he must, he was too f*cking good at it and seemed to always want to do it. She was in for a surprise a moment later, though, when he moved away from her, and laid back on the other half of the sectional sofa she’d picked for this room, big enough that someday in the future they could all easily fit on it, her and Matt and their kids.

“Come here.” Matt encouraged, and she moved over him, surprised he wanted to move on from eating her out so quickly. She sat astride him, and kissed him hard and long, her tongue diving into his mouth. She loved when it felt like she was conquering him, when he gave way under her attentions and she got to just dominate a kiss like this. Finally, he pulled back as much as he could, given he was on the bottom, and his hands were under her hips, encouraging her to lift her weight from him which she didn’t really want to do, give up the delicious slide of her most sensitive spots against his erection, even if they did still have her underwear between them.

“Baby come here.” Matt encouraged, and she had to admit, she didn’t know what he wanted.

“What do you-?”
“Sit on me.”
“I am.”
“No, just…” he paused, looking confused. “You’ve never done this, have you? Of course not. Baby, you ever heard the phrase ‘sit on his face’?”
“I…” She had, actually, but she’d certainly never even thought about doing it. Until right now, with him looking at her like that, all expectant. “You want me to…?”
“Oh, f*ck, yes.” Matt replied emphatically, and with his hands guiding (just about forcing) her, she moved up to straddle his face instead of his hips and he pulled her underwear off. It felt really awkward, even if he’d had his face in the same part of her body many times by now. Matt had no apparent compunctions, though, and pulled her down to meet his mouth. She nearly fell forward, landing on her hands thankfully, as he seriously pulled out all the stops right away. The wonderful effect of a long-term relationship was that Matt knew every single inch of her and how to play her body to best effect and when he wanted to make her come quickly, he sure as f*ck could make it happen. She also never had to worry that he'd think she was a slu*t or something if she liked something weird or made too much noise - no, he reveled in making her loud, always told her there was no need to ever be embarrassed with him. She came apart in what felt like a minute, but he didn’t let up, instead his fingers joined in the action and she flew into what had to be a second org*sm with almost no pause from the first and she had no idea how he did this to her. She hit a third org*sm before she finally had to rip herself away from him. God, she wished she could repay the favor.

“Why is your dick so big?”
“You complaining?”
“Yes, actually.” She replied, but she kissed him to take any sting away. “I feel bad that I can’t do that for you, but your dick doesn’t fit in my mouth when you’re this hard. I’m surprised it fits in my puss*.”
“Sylvie.” He groaned, as she slid down his body, letting her wet lips slide from his chest down to over his hard co*ck which lay against his abs, nestling it between her lips but not actually putting it inside her. She didn’t stay still, just small smooth movements, keeping his co*ck sliding along her slit steadily, lightly, and so wetly. God, he was so thick, her lips had to spread wide to do this, and it felt fantastic.

“So big, baby.” She told him, leaning forward to kiss him again. “You split me open so wide and I’m so wet for you. I want to ride you until I’m f*cked wide open and dripping with you.”
“f*ck, Sylvie.” Matt managed, his hips rising to meet hers but otherwise letting her have her way. She thrust against him for just a few more moments, then shifted up enough to get him lined up and she sat, gradually, down on him. He groaned, throwing his head back. She could never take all of him, or even half, the first time because he was too wide, she had to let her body adjust. What a princess first-world problem, she knew, that her fiancé had a dick so big she had to go slow at first. Something about the angle tonight was a little different, he was hitting a slightly different spot, and she managed to get all the way down on him, almost anyway, after a couple minutes. She rode him as promised, shoving him back down when he tried to sit up. She wanted to ride him properly tonight. His hands found her tit*, though, and if she wasn’t so f*cking turned on right now it might hurt, how strong his hands were against her, but it felt fantastic right now, and then his left hand slipped to her cl*t, and she gasped, yelped, both as it was like something in her opened up, because suddenly he was buried all the way inside her, pubic bones fully touching, and there was a touch of pain to the incredible pleasure but she rode harder because it was mostly that mind-blowing body-numbing pleasure, and she completely came apart on him, her legs gave out and she stopped any conscious movement though on spinal reflex apparently her body kept f*cking him, and she was sure she was screaming something, he’d never felt so big inside her, and in a distant somewhere she realized he was coming, too, and her body hit another sharp spike of pleasure, and she arched into it, then, sh*t, f*ck, did she, and she pulled off him abruptly, rushing to the downstairs bathroom. She heard Matt stumble behind her a moment later.

“Sylvie? Did I hurt you?” He sounded worried.

“Oh god, Matt, I think I just peed on you.” She admitted, completely embarrassed, as she sat on the toilet. God, talk about intimacy. She didn’t apparently have to pee, though. Weird. “I had a lot of wine, I’m so sorry.”

“Syl-“
“But it’s your fault, if your dick wasn’t so big it wouldn’t be punching my bladder.”
“Babe, you know, uh, women, some women, they just…there’s a rush of extra fluid sometimes when they come really hard from contact at the right angle.”
“I’m pretty sure they make that up for p*rn, Matt.” Sylvie shook her head.

“Probably the stuff with like…a cup of liquid, but Sylvie…that was not that much. And even if it was pee, I don’t care. Considering the noise you were making, it felt great and that’s what matters.” He grinned at her, completely shameless. “I’m pretty sure the only thing you’re, uh, voiding right now is what I just put in you.”
“You’re right.” Sylvie had to admit that much. She still wiped before she stood back up, and habitually flushed the toilet. The house was pretty much dark, they hadn’t even bothered to turn on a light when they came in. It didn’t matter, she didn’t plan to be anywhere but their bedroom for much longer. She moved to him, bringing her body flush against his and kissing him firmly, letting her fingers trail down his side to his softening co*ck. “That just leaves room for you to fill me up again, in our bed.”

Chapter 11: The Bachelorette

Chapter Text

Heather, Griffin, and Ben landed at O’Hare about lunchtime on the eighth. They were on shift, and Matt clearly felt bad about not being able to pick them up at the airport. Heather’s parents had moved to Florida several years ago, and her brother lived in Georgia now, but her sister still lived out in the suburbs. So it wasn’t like they didn’t have a ride or anything. In fact, Sylvie had reassured Matt that it was nice that they were getting to stay with family for a while, not just come in and out quickly for the wedding. She was nervous, she’d never met the Dardens obviously, though Matt kept in pretty good contact with the boys and Heather. She wanted them to like her.

She was also really emotional in general though right now, as the wedding got closer and she was just desperately hoping nothing would go wrong at the last minute. She had warned Matt she would kill him if he got injured in any way before the wedding – not even a bruise or a cut or anything. The entire crew of Truck had gotten a stern lecture from her about making sure that Captain Casey kept his behind out of any possible trouble. She put Stella in charge of that, because Stella was a little less scared of Matt than his guys were, for some reason. Not that Stella didn’t respect Matt, of course she did. Gallo was too new to trust with telling a Captain to stand down. Mouch was too loyal to Matt, or just too trusting that Casey always managed to come out of everything. Otis was just too…Otis. They had this shift and one more to get through before the wedding, and she did not want him damaged in anyway, so Stella had a maid-of-honor duty that maybe most didn’t: keep the groom from any possible danger, even if he didn’t like it.

“You know, I could write her up. I would, if I didn’t think she was just doing what you asked.” Matt dropped into a seat at the table. He didn’t look angry, really, just more aggravated.

“Write who up?”
“Kidd. You know, it’s still insubordination to refuse an order on a call.”
“Uh-huh. And what was the order?”
“That doesn’t matter. It was my call. Not hers, and not yours.”
“Did your call happen to risk your life or limb? 4 days before our wedding?” Sylvie asked pointedly.

“It wasn’t that big of a risk.”
“Your definition of a big risk or a big deal is a little different from, you know, a sane person’s.”
“I’m sane.” Matt looked a little offended and a little confused.

“Nope. Too brave to be sane.” Sylvie shook her head. “And you are not allowed to get so much as a bruise right now. You are going to be in perfect and complete working order for our wedding and our honeymoon. Got it, mister?”

“I’m not taking any unnecessary risks-“
“Good, but I trust Stella’s definition of unnecessary more than yours.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“To make the safest decision for everyone else, absolutely.” Sylvie replied honestly and bluntly, then kissed him softly. “To make the safest decision for yourself, not entirely, no.”

“I’m not reckless.”
“You’re brave and you’re selfless and normally I love you for it. I know you wouldn’t risk something…awful,” She couldn’t even make herself say her biggest fear, “but I do not want you to have a black eye or something, okay? So let your guys take point for a couple shifts.”
“I’ll be extra careful, but call off your bulldog. I can’t have her telling me ‘no’ in the field, Sylvie. Next time, if there’s other crews on the site – I can’t have that, okay? Just…I promise, I’ll be careful. I really will.”
“Then Stella won’t have to remind you.” Sylvie smiled brightly. She wasn’t backing down on this. He was going to be his perfect handsome self for their wedding pictures, even if she had to tie him down. There was an idea. She could just tie him, preferably in a comfortable bed, and keep him there. Possibly forever.

“What’re you plotting?” Matt asked, leaning in to almost whisper. “I know that look.”

“I was just thinking of an alternative to keep you safe.” She replied with an easy shrug. Then she leaned in close, whispering into his ear, “I could just tie you in bed and keep you there, naked and waiting for me. I know quite a few kinds of knots, and I could just have my wicked way with you, all” Matt cut her off with a hard kiss, a completely unprofessional ‘I forgot we were still in the common room at work’ kiss, but just before it could devolve into something really fun, she felt something bounce off the side of her head.

“Come on, no one needs to see that!” Foster called, and Sylvie realized, mostly because Matt had somehow caught it on the rebound, that Foster had thrown a roll of gauze at them. “Hey, we’re all really happy for you two, but leave that for the honeymoon.”
“It’s a definite idea for the honeymoon.” Sylvie almost giggled as she whispered in Matt’s ear again. He had blushed at the realization that he had kissed her like that in the common room, and she couldn’t help laughing anymore when he so carefully scooted his chair a little farther under the table. Oh, yeah, he approved of that possibility for sure.

Their respective bachelor and bachelorette parties were set for the ninth, the rehearsal dinner for the tenth, with shift on the eleventh, and the wedding on the twelfth. That gave everyone from 51 the thirteenth to recover from the reception before shift on the fourteenth. It also meant that her parents were arriving at lunch the day after her bachelorette (and Matt’s bachelor) party and that all of their out-of-town guests not attending the rehearsal were arriving either early Saturday or on Friday while she was on shift so not able to welcome them. She and her bridesmaids had put together welcome bags for each guest or couple, complete with a guide to nearby restaurants. Matt had arranged for a trip to Navy Pier, and apparently some sort of pizza picnic at Oak Street Beach across the road from the Drake. It was all stuff her mom was now in charge of managing, though, because their schedules were a pain. She probably should’ve taken the shift on the eleventh off (her mother had certainly told her to do so enough times) but Matt had refused and she had still not shaken her fears (irrational of course) of him being on shift without her. And yes, everyone had already had a good laugh about the literally pages of instructions Matt had left for his relief about the proper-care-and-feeding of his truck, his guys, and the entirety of second watch for the three (that’s all, three) shifts he was going to be out for his honeymoon. It was incredibly sweet, somewhat over-protective, and fantastically anal-retentive, with a huge helping of control-freak-with-trust-issues, so basically perfectly Matt Casey.

Shift on the eighth was incredibly busy. She hoped Herrmann’s weird superstition or whatever was right, that if this shift was busy the next one would be quiet. Most firehouses didn’t see an actual fire once per shift. Even 51 rarely saw more than one serious fire a week across all its shifts (they had a lot of other calls, obviously). Somehow, September 8^th sent Firehouse 51 to three separate fires. Not calls. Fires. Even with the new second set of turn-outs, that wasn’t enough time to really clean and clear all the gear. The third one had thankfully been smaller, and they were a relief company on the first, but the middle fire had been huge and exhausting. Nonetheless, by 8 am on the ninth, second watch was focusing on the parties that Kelly and Stella had arranged.

Matt’s day was busier, he was leaving straight from shift to go fishing on the lake with all of his groomsmen. Well, minus Griffin and Ben. Mouch apparently wasn’t really much of a fisher, but was going out of solidarity and probably Kelly’s promise of copious amounts of free beer. He’d also arranged for some sandwiches and snacks to be delivered to Chief’s boat along with any bait and whatever other gear they needed to be out into the early afternoon. Sylvie wasn’t too confident that much fishing would happen, but they would at least have fun. The fact that Matt had changed into his swimming trunks before leaving was probably indicative that he planned to leave the boat – she would’ve been more nervous about him swimming out in the middle (or close enough) of Lake Michigan but Kelly and Matt had both assured her that he was a very good open-water swimmer. Kelly’s quiet (aka when Matt was not in the room) admittance that Matt was a better swimmer than he was and was dive-certified just like he was helped, too. Not that they needed to dive at all. But it wasn’t just Matt thinking he was good, paid instructors signed off on it.

Her day was starting off easier. Stella had nothing planned until brunch at 10:30. A leisurely brunch with her mother, her grandmother (who’d come up with her parents), Christie, and all her bridesmaids (including Violet and Caitlin) meant that they were all stuffed. The mimosas with it (not for Violet and Caitlin) also meant that they were well on their way to light inebriation by the time they left at noon. Stella had been fantastic about arranging things during the day that Sylvie’s family and junior bridesmaids could attend, because the next stop was a group trip to the spa, prepping for the big day. They didn’t all have the same treatments, in fact, Sylvie wasn’t sure what everyone had, but they did all at least get facials at various points. It was relaxing and fun, full of light-hearted gossip about everything and nothing. After her over-hour-long warm bamboo massage that was supposed to balance, calm, and energize her (she was happy to just to get any remaining soot and crap out of her pores from those fire grounds), she ended up getting her cleansing facial right next to Violet and Christie.

“We should do this more often.” Violet said, tucked in the spot between the two women.

“Brunch and spa?” Christie asked.

“Yeah, all three of us, though. I mean,” Violet laughed, “we could ask Uncle Matt to join us, but I’m trying to imagine him at a spa.”
“Those poor women, trying to give him a manicure.” Christie laughed. “I’m not sure he has anything but callouses on his hands. Does he still bite his nails, Sylvie?”
“No, he keeps them so short there’d be nothing to bite.” Sylvie replied. “He used to bite his nails?”
“To the quick.” Christie replied, and even with her eyes closed, Sylvie could tell Christie was rolling her eyes. “Instead of just keeping them trimmed he’d bite them off. It was so gross.”
“He could get a facial.” Violet suggested, giggling again.

“He could probably use a massage.” Christie replied, a little more seriously. Sylvie had to laugh, and once she had caught her breath enough to do so, now felt the need to explain.

“Kelly told me a story, Matt was so annoyed it must be true, that back…oh, when he was like a year into dating Hallie,”
“Hallie was his girlfriend when I was really little, right, Mom?”
“They were engaged.” Christie corrected. “She died when you were about nine, so you would’ve been about two when this story must’ve happened.”
“So,” Sylvie continued, “Kelly said that Hallie and Heather and his girlfriend at the time talked all three of the guys, Kelly, Andy, and Matt, into going to a spa for couples’ massages. Matt had no idea what getting a massage meant. So, when they told them to take off their clothes, he freaked out.”
“How do you not know what a massage is?” Violet asked. “Did he get one, though? A massage?”
“Hallie calmed him down, until he realized his masseuse was female. Kelly says Matt is the only person in history to come out of a massage tenser than he was when he got there.”
“He didn’t like it?” Violet asked.

“I think he liked it too much, which embarrassed him.” Christie laughed. It took Violet a minute, and then,

“Gross! Mom! That’s Uncle Matt, your brother!”
“He’s also male.” Christie replied. “And I knew him when he was a lot younger than he is now, and trust me, I know how he reacts to pretty girls.”
“Yeah, but that’s gross to…he’s Uncle Matt. He’s not like really a boy.” Violet sighed. “Except some of my friends at school think he’s ‘sooooo handsome’ and ‘totally hot’ which is weird and gross. He’s old. Sorry, Sylvie, but to me, he’s really old.”
“Don’t worry, he thinks your friends are all pretty much babies still – he’d agree with your thought that it’s weird and gross and he’s way too old for them to pay any attention to him.” Sylvie reassured.

“But really, can we do this more often?” Violet asked after a minute. “We should hang out more, now that you’re going to be Aunt Sylvie. That’s cool, right, I can call you Aunt Sylvie?”
“Absolutely.” Sylvie was not going to cry in the middle of her facial. For some reason, the idea of being ‘Aunt Sylvie’ just hit her hard. She’d known, of course, that she wasn’t just marrying Matt, but she was getting lots of new titles, not just wife, and she was going to love them all.

They left the spa just in time to head for a group painting class. There was more wine, though this time there was a sparkling grape juice alternative for those who did not want alcohol, or were too young. Sylvie picked a spot next to Caitlin this time, knowing the girl only really knew the Brett women in this group. Everyone was of course welcoming, but still, she was only sixteen and Sylvie wasn’t sure she’d ever even been to Chicago before, let alone then thrown into a group of grown women. So Sylvie drank wine, and so did Mom (and all the rest of the wedding party) and Christie, Violet, and Grandma and Caitlin drank the non-alcoholic stuff, and everyone tried to paint various versions of the Chicago skyline that the instructor was showing them. It was hilariously fun because it turned out, pretty much none of them had much artistic talent, though Chloe’s easily came out the best – it was pretty nice, really. Sylvie’s own effort looked more like Dali she thought, and Caitlin’s was definitely a little like maybe a Picasso, but the important part was the laughing and the fun. Well, and everyone got a cool self-made souvenir of the trip to Chicago.

Sylvie got a text halfway through their time at the studio, and she was starting to get way too emotional. Chief had sent a picture of Kelly, Matt, Griffin (who was now nearly the height of his father’s best friends), and Ben, stood together at the base of the big climbing wall in Maggie Daley Park, then a second photo of all four at the top of their respective courses. Kelly had included the Darden boys in the afternoon and evening plans for Matt’s bachelor party, which Sylvie thought was the sweetest thing on the planet. Well, one of the sweetest things on the planet. As the girls left the art studio, she got another text, this one from Kelly with a short video of the helicopter tour of Chicago that they were on with the boys.

“Sylvie, what is it?” Mom asked, as Sylvie couldn’t help both smiling and tearing up.

“Kelly sent this video of Matt and Andy Darden’s sons and…” Sylvie shrugged. She didn’t know how to put her feelings into words.

“I remember Griffin and Ben. They lived with Uncle Matt for a while, didn’t they, Mom? We used to watch them after school on shift days and stuff.”
“Yes, for oh, several months, Matt had custody.” Christie confirmed.

“Are those the boys who’re our escorts at the wedding?” Caitlin asked, looking at the video Sylvie was showing them all.

“Yep. So you girls pick before the rehearsal tomorrow – which one do you want, that’s Griffin and that’s Ben?” Violet and Caitlin looked at each other, hit replay on the video, then looked back at each other. In some sort of secret teenage girl psychic communication, they nodded and then turned to Sylvie.

“I’ll take Ben.” Violet volunteered. “He’s younger and he’ll probably remember me, so that’ll be easier. Plus Caitlin is taller so she can have Griffin.”
“Okay, well, that was easy.” Sylvie laughed, hugging both girls just because. But, it was seriously time to head for dinner, which Stella had planned for the Drake. After dinner, the girls, Mom, Grandma, and Christie all stayed at the hotel, while Stella took the rest of the bridal party out on a somewhat more…adult-oriented outing. Sylvie was not entirely sure why Stella thought pole-dancing lessons was an ideal bachelorette-party event, but it did turn out to be incredibly fun. She took a few photos, including one of Stella on the pole that she sent to Kelly, who sent back what looked like a raised eyebrow emoji (okay, so she’d had alcohol with dinner, and wasn’t sure she was seeing the right things entirely, but she could still pole-dance so she totally was not drunk, no matter what Matt sent back in that text when she’d told him she was at a dance class learning to dance on his pole. Which wasn’t what she’d intended to type, but oh well. Apparently the boys were having a calmer party (for now): all of them got sent photos of the entirety of House 51 (well, the guys) out at Gino’s East for pizza, with Ben and Griffin firmly in the center, both decked out in Truck 81 gear, looking proud as hell about it, too. Sylvie wondered how Heather was going to take that, given she was widowed by the CFD, but…the boys looked happy. It was really sweet, too, even the guys that hadn’t known Darden had shown up for his boys. That was why she loved 51. She knew not every firehouse was as close as hers, but at 51, it really was a family. Sometimes a little incestuous, but a family.

The pole-dancing lesson ended at nine-thirty. They went to the loft, changed clothes quickly, and headed for the clubs. Stella, more likely Foster, knew exactly which clubs ran specials on a Wednesday night apparently and they had tables reserved at a couple, then they’d do a more old-fashioned bar crawl (not to include Molly’s of course). Sylvie was incredibly grateful that Stella was a fantastic wing-woman or maid-of-honor or both or whatever. Every other glass in her hand was water, all night, because the other every-other glass was something Emily brought her or someone, it usually seemed to be Emily, and that meant Sylvie was really very drunk. Which probably explained why, at the second club, which was a strip club, which Sylvie didn’t even really enjoy usually, and they had male strippers, she ended up announcing quite loudly that the dancer was nice enough, but Matt was handsomer.

“And he has good abs, but you know, Matt’s are harder than you think, he doesn’t have a six-pack you can see, but he’s like a rock. Did you know that?” She asked Emily, sort of the whole group, and Emily just laughed.

“No, no one else here knows what Casey’s abs are like.” Emily finally answered.

“You can actually eat off of them. I’ve done it.”
“She has been drinking some water, hasn’t she?” Lily asked, laughing but also looking a little concerned.

“Stella takes good care of me! Lots of water!” Sylvie reassured her.
“She’s supposed to get really drunk on her bachelorette.” Emily reasoned. “It’s why she’s crashing at the apartment tonight, right, Stella?”
“That, and her parents are at the house, she and Casey didn’t want to come in at ass o’clock and wake them up. I think we’ve got Casey for the next like…three nights? Until the wedding.” Stella replied.

“His butt isn’t as nice as Matt’s either.” Sylvie announced, still watching the dancer. It was sort of mesmerizing. “But I don’t think I could get Matt into something like that. He’d look nice though, don’t you think? He has a butt that could wear a thong.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Emily admitted. Sylvie turned, not having expected actual agreement.

“Why are you looking at Matt’s ass?”
“Because it’s nice to look at!” Emily laughed. “I can look, I can’t touch, and he’s not my type, anyway, but he’s nice to look at – back me up, ladies. Sylvie’s guy is not a hard man to have to stare at. Stella, your annual reviews must be…”
“He’s mostly Kelly’s best friend now.” Stella shrugged, “except when he does that solemn oh-so-serious every-word-you-are-saying-matters-“
“Yes that look!” Chloe agreed, quite loudly. “Oh my God, Joe had me with the smile, and I love him, so much, but when Matt looks at you like that, like you’re saying something profound and he’s only paying attention to you, it’s…his eyes are mesmerizing. Hypnotic.”

“We are never telling any of the guys what is said here tonight!” Lily announced, and everyone promptly agreed because, well, what happens on a girl’s night stays on a girl’s night.

“I think it’s time to go to the normal bars.” Sylvie decided. “The ones without strippers.”
“Why? We’ve got this table for like…half an hour more.” Emily checked the time.
“Because he’s nice, but all I can think about is Matt, how he’d fill out that thong, and that Matt’s-“
“Okay, yep, time to go.” Stella clapped a hand over Sylvie’s mouth. “Given the last year, I don’t think Casey wants you to finish that sentence and give out any private information. No matter how complimentary it might be, Sylvie.”

“sh*t.” Sylvie could kiss Stella right now. This is why you had a maid of honor. Okay, one of many reasons, but a big one. “Oh, God, no, he’d hate it. He’s still so…I hate that woman. I know we’re not supposed to hate anyone, but I hate her and her stupid creepy husband and I think we need shots to toast our hatred of her and him and everything about it! Shots, then on to another bar and happier toasts!” Sylvie declared.

Chapter 12: I Will Die a Very Happy Man

Chapter Text

She knew Matt had gotten rather drunk as well, not least because of the sheer number of pictures Stella was texted over the course of the night. She probably had them on her phone, too, but Stella had confiscated her phone after the third time she dropped it while trying to unlock it. Instead, Stella was content to share the pictures Kelly was sending from Matt’s bachelor party. Sylvie hadn’t barred strip joints for Matt (apparently some fiancées did that) but she was pretty sure Matt had: just the idea of someone buying him a lap-dance was probably enough to make Matt want to take a boiling shower. If Sylvie gave him one, he’d love it, but having a stranger do it? Nope, not for Matt. The guys had left the Darden boys with Heather before really heading out on the town, and as the drinking got heavier, Matt appeared in more pictures. Even drunk as she was, she hoped everyone remembered not to post anything on social media without Matt’s permission, he was really sensitive (for obvious reasons) to that now. She was grateful that Stella had cut her off drinking-wise an hour ago, now it was all water. She was still really drunk, but not like fall-down drunk or anything like that, as Stella guided her back into the apartment.

“I love the new house, but I kinda love this place, too. I know it’s your place, but it kinda feels like our first place, too.” Sylvie mused aloud. Maybe really loud. It was hard to judge volume, the bars had been so loud all night.

“For tonight, it’s your place again. Think you can manage to find the guest room yourself?”
“Matt’s here. That’s his phone.” Sylvie pointed as if that was a surprise.

“Kelly texted about an hour ago, they have plans with the boys tomorrow, so I think they cut off their prospective hangovers before we did.”

“Baseball game.” Sylvie remembered now. “Definitely not hangover friendly. We’re not doing anything hot and sweaty and dehydrating tomorrow are we?”
“Oh, hell no. Sauna morning, and pedicures in the afternoon.” Stella laughed. “No point in a mani until after shift.”

“Kelly! Hi!” Sylvie waved, as Kelly came out of his bedroom. He’d clearly been asleep, but didn’t look too grumpy as he came over to them. She couldn’t help it, she hugged him, “thank you for being Matt’s best best man. I mean, the best best man for Matt.”
“You’re welcome.” Kelly was laughing at her. That was okay. She didn’t care.

“Is Matt asleep? Did I wake you?”
“You’re a little loud, yeah.” Kelly admitted. “Casey went to bed ‘bout an hour ago, but you’ll have to find out for yourself if he’s still asleep. Take a bottle of water with you, you’re going to want it in the morning.”
“Good idea.” Sylvie walked, a little wobbly but you try walking in these heels this late at night, it’s not easy, over to the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water. One for her, one for Matt.

Matt had clearly not been so drunk that Kelly felt the need to put him to bed, instead trusting Matt to get himself safely to bed, but he was drunk enough that he’d just stripped down and dropped down on the bed. He’d stripped all the way down. So Sylvie was greeted with the sight of Matt, face down and completely naked, illuminated only by the dim light from the window. Damn, she wished she had her phone. She wanted a picture of this. He had a great ass. Her eyes trailed up his body as she quickly (if slightly clumsily) stripped her own clothes off. She didn’t even bother to pretend to be tidy, just tossed wherever. Why was he so sexy? His ass was fantastic and his back and shoulders always made her feel some sort of way, if by way she meant really turned on, and the urge to touch him was just too strong. Once she was as naked as him, she joined him on the bed, maybe a little too heavily, though, because he groaned and shifted.

“Sylvie?”
“It’s just me, babe.” She assured him, pretty much laying on top of him, reveling in the feel of her skin in so much direct contact with his. She kissed along the back of his neck, and those beautiful sculpted shoulders. Her hands moved over what she could readily reach of him, and she also enjoyed the feel of her naked breasts sliding so slightly along his back as she moved.

“Mmm.” Matt’s only response was wordless, but it didn’t sound like a complaint. Her right hand moved along his side, caressing his hip, fingers doing their best to slip underneath him, but either Matt or the mattress didn’t really have enough give in it for her to really access what she wanted.

“Time to wake up, baby.” She half-whispered next to his ear. She might feel bad tomorrow about waking him up just for sex, but she wanted him, right now.

“ ‘d roll, but you’ll get landed on.” Matt sounded about half-way awake. She took the hint and moved off of him, giving him room to roll over onto his back. His eyes were half-open, but he smiled softly at her. “Have a good time tonight?”
“It’s not over yet.” Sylvie grinned at him. “I want you, Matt. I can’t wait until morning to have your big dick inside me.”

“f*cking hell, that mouth on you.” Matt still didn’t sound like he was complaining. She moved quickly, probably not as smoothly as she would normally, but she didn’t care. She wanted to taste him. She wanted him in her mouth. One hand on his hip and the other on his balls, she sucked his soft dick into her mouth firmly. “f*ck, Sylvie.”
She wasted no time at all on pleasantries. She was way too horny and right now what she mostly wanted was to hear him lose his mind, to make him lose his mind. Matt was usually so controlled and carefully contained, that when she could make him completely out of control it felt even more satisfying than sex with him inevitably did. She pulled out every ‘trick’ she’d ever used for any blowj*b she’d ever given. She hadn’t actually spent much time on oral sex with Matt, well, she had, but him going down on her not the other way around. She wasn’t opposed to it, but as he started to quickly grow in her mouth, she was reminded of why that was.

“You’re so big.” She gasped, pulling back for breath, then diving back down onto him. She was determined to finish him off orally this time, she wanted to taste him, all of him, but seriously, she had never longed for a double-jointed jaw before. Determination only took her so far, and at the third wince from him after she knew her teeth were more-than-grazing sensitive spots, she pulled off his dick again. She was out-of-breath and a little frustrated, because she liked giving head, well, she liked giving him head. She loved the way he kept so quiet when she did it, all sharp hitches in his breathing and tiny gasps and whole body shudders. He wasn’t all that quiet during sex, well, when they were f*cking, but oral he was quiet. He was the only man she’d ever had sex with who could so thoroughly, obviously, come apart at the seams and do it quietly.

“Sylvie, it’s fine.” Matt reassured her, his hand running gently through her hair while she knelt between his legs on the bed.

“It’s not fine.” She shook her head. She was maybe drunk and a little emotional. “You get me off so fantastically well with your mouth and…I can’t.”
“I accepted that fate a long time ago.” Matt smiled softly.

“You have to have had some girlfriend at some point who managed it.”

“Are you asking for tips from my exes, in the middle of sex?”
“No. Yes. Maybe. Sort of.”

“Sylvie, seriously,” Matt had that solemn look on his face, “it’s not like I miss it. I’ve never really…had it. Gabby gave up after our second time even trying to do anything oral. Most girls I’ve met in bars and stuff like that, they get scared off about the time it gets half-hard. It’s okay.”
“What about…Severide mentioned a Susanna?”
“What the hell were you talking about that she came up?” Matt asked, then shook his head. “I don’t want to know, she was a bitch, and not someone I want to talk about right now, possibly ever again. Best lesson I got from that – and there were a few – is to not let whether or not a girl can take my dick in her mouth decide a relationship.”
“So she could do it, so it is possible.” Sylvie tried to figure out an angle to make this work.

“Sylvie.” Matt pulled her to him, kissing her so thoroughly she forgot what she’d been thinking about for several minutes. He pulled back, eventually, and met her eyes. “I. Don’t. Care.”

“I. Want. To. Taste. Your. Come.” Sylvie replied with the same metered speech.

“f*ck me.” Matt groaned, his hips bucking up into her. “You can do that without…f*ck it, we’ve brought up my exes in the bed already. Hallie had this way of sort of, not putting it in her mouth, just all kisses and licking and sucking along it, until I was ready to come, then just putting what she could of the head in her mouth, think the angle took her some study but-“
“Yes, of course. Nope, I get it, say no more.” Sylvie nodded, sliding back down his body to reposition herself. Battle plan formed in her mind, she licked up his balls first, loving the feel of his balls moving in the sack. It fascinated her and turned her on, and she paid some attention to them for a few minutes. She idly wondered if he’d consider shaving his balls so she could really do this and not risk hair in her mouth/teeth (which was kind of gross), but then turned her attention to the thick shaft of his co*ck. She swore he was literally the width of a beer can. She didn’t figure he minded the amount of spit she was making as she did this, given his fingers had wound into her hair and were very much encouraging her mouth to move along his co*ck, her hand gripping the base and keep it from laying against his stomach so she could get the right angle and access all side of his co*ck. She moved her tongue back and forth rapidly over his frenulum, then worked on finding an angle to get the head in her mouth, then went back to his frenulum, and so on, until he was incredibly soaked in her spit but also, she’d found an angle that just – with a bit of teeth admittedly – allowed her to get most of the head into her mouth. She sucked, and just as she winced on his behalf, realizing her bottom teeth had caught on his frenulum, Matt cursed (she thought, it sounded like a strangled version of all the curse words together actually) and his hips jerked just as his come shot into her mouth. She sucked harder, wanting to get every drop, because of course even his come tasted good because he was Matt and he was stupidly perfect like that. Also the slightly salty went kind of well with the margarita taste in her mouth from the clubs tonight.

“My turn.” Matt pulled her off him, and had her beneath him in a second. Maybe it just felt like a second as she swallowed and caught her breath. She didn’t even realize what he’d done entirely until she was practically folded in half and her knees were nearly to her ears, strong hands holding her open and in position as Matt’s tongue did beautifully obscene things to her already dripping puss*. It took little time for her to come, and he eased her down from it, but even as he lowered her legs back to the bed, he slipped between them. His fingers found their way to her cl*t, rubbing softly at the sensitized bit of nerves, and he kissed her again, his tongue delving deeply into her mouth to tangle with hers. One, two, three fingers gradually he slipped into her puss*, clearly preparing her for exactly what she wanted.

“f*ck me, Matt.” She encouraged, as breathing became necessary and they had to part briefly.

“Tell me you want me.” Matt whispered in her ear, as his body covered hers completely.

“I want you in me, Matt. Please. I need your dick inside me. I need you. Please, please, f*ck me, Matt. Please.” She wasn’t at her most coherent, she just went with whatever came to mind in that second. She just wanted him. All of him. If he wanted to hear it, she could give him that, readily, happily. “Be in me, all of you inside me, need you, be part of me, make me part of you, please, I want to feel you filling all my spaces, fill me up, Matt. Please, fill me up.”
“f*ck.” Matt pushed into her, going slowly as he almost always did, and she reveled in the feeling of him spreading her walls, making her body fit around him, like a glove, like she’d been built to fit him perfectly.

“I need you, Matt.” She kept whispering in his ear. “Give me everything. Give me all of you. Please. Please.”

“Not gonna last.” Matt confessed into her shoulder and neck. He was moving now, rocking harder with each thrust, and Sylvie let herself ride the sensations. She couldn’t get him close enough, grabbing at all of him she could reach, wanting him deeper, wanting all of him joined entirely with her. He was hitting those spots inside her he knew so well, and she came apart on him, hoping that she wasn’t screaming anywhere but inside her head, but too lost in the sensations to know, and she just kept coming while he thrust harder for a moment, then he was coming inside her. His movements slowed, so did hers, and eventually they were just lying in the bed, him still half-hard inside her.

“We can’t sleep like this.” Matt said softly after a couple moments.

“I want to.” Sylvie kissed his shoulder. “I want to keep you inside me always and forever.”
“I’m pretty sure we can’t go to work like this.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t wish we could.”
“You’re going to be sick of the sticky feeling in a few minutes.”
“I’ll deal with that in a few minutes. For now, let me revel. I love your dick inside me, I wish there was like a ‘you’ I could take to work and just be reminded…stay ready for the real thing all the time.”

“You’re gonna kill me someday, you and that mouth of yours.” Matt chuckled, shifting above her, and inside her, and that was a delicious sensation. He kissed her softly. “But I will die a very happy man.”

Chapter 13: The Wedding

Chapter Text

“Hey, Brett, Foster – you want to check on those guys?” Schneider called as they rolled up to the scene. Active fire scenes often ended up needing multiple ambulances, so it wasn’t a surprise that they’d been called as a relief unit to a multiple-alarm fire in the far north end of Bridgeport. It was just the next district over anyway. Schneider was waving at a couple firefighters, well, no, three guys, one was pretty much doubled-over. “They just brought this guy out – gave up the SCBA, that firefighter needs to be checked but we gotta run if it’s not going to be a wasted move!”
“We got it!” Foster yelled and waved. Sylvie would’ve replied, but in that instant she had realized one thing. She could read the turnout gear, and that was definitely Mouch and Otis, which could only leave the doubled-over one as Stella or Matt. Maybe Gallo. Please be Gallo, she begged in her head, as the figure ended up kneeling from the coughing fit. She liked Gallo, but he wasn’t in her wedding in less than 24 hours (just a guest). As they jogged closer, it was clear it was Matt who had just taken a knee on a fire ground. God, he was coughing so hard he couldn’t stand up.
“Brett! Foster!” Mouch turned enough to see them, waving them over. “He gave his mask to the vic, must’ve been in there without it at least five minutes.”
“I’m fine.” Matt’s attempt at calm reassurance was completely ruined by the fact that he was saying it while coughing, not even between coughs, literally while coughing. Sylvie hoped no one among the small crowd was videoing this because she grabbed his face so hard it was pretty much a slap, and forced his eyes up to meet hers.
“You are not fine and if you give me one second of trouble I will report you, husband or not, captain or not, and if you’re so not fine that you can’t marry me tomorrow I am going to kill you myself.”
“Just…bit of…smoke.” Matt spoke around coughs this time. It still was the opposite of convincing.
“Stop trying to talk.” Foster ordered, just before Sylvie could.
“Otis, grab Gallo, get the gurney, we’re taking him to Med.” Sylvie spoke, seeing the newest guy on truck sort of hovering nearby just off Otis’ shoulder. Otis nodded, and did as he was told. At least he managed to do as he was told, her soon-to-be-husband was an idiot.
“I don’t-“
“Matt, do not push me right now.” Sylvie warned him, legitimately furious with him. They were getting married tomorrow. He couldn’t, just for one damned day, stay out of trouble? No. He had to be a stupid damned hero and do exactly what they weren’t supposed to do which is give up his mask because then if he can’t breathe the victim isn’t exactly capable of rescuing the both of them and they could both be lost and now, sure enough, they were both suffering from smoke inhalation. Matt was such a jackass. She wanted to slap him. Hard. Several times.
“I-“
“Matthew James Casey, if you ever want to have sex again, I would stop right there, right now.”
Matt held up his hands, clearly surrendering, as Otis and Gallo rushed over with the gurney.
“Who has the fire ground?” Sylvie asked, looking around quickly. Foster was doing the check on Matt, probably best, given she was about to be his wife and about ten kinds of conflicted for his care. “He’s not the senior officer, is he?” He shouldn’t be, this big a fire should have a chief or two here.
“Nah, battalion chief from 4 is over there.” Mouch pointed vaguely to the south.
“Brett, we need to go. Visible debris in the airway, cough is bringing up black in the sputum, he’s got stridor – we need to get him to Med.” Foster announced, bringing her hand out from under Matt’s shirt and dropping her stethoscope back around her neck. Matt’s continued coughing was really proof enough anyway.
“Help us load him up.” Sylvie asked and immediately Mouch and Otis were under an arm each, getting Matt up on his feet and onto the gurney. She affixed the oxygen mask, shooting him a look before he could even complain that he didn’t need it, or didn’t need to be transported, or whatever stupid thing was about to come out of his mouth. “Foster, I’m driving.”
“You sure?”
“It’s against protocol for me to treat him.” Sylvie reminded, as the guys lifted the gurney into the back. “I’m also less likely to kill him for getting himself hurt the day before our wedding if I drive. So there’s that.”

“He’s been admitted.” Will Halstead announced as he came out into the designated waiting area for everyone from 51. “We need to keep him overnight, just to make sure there’s no complications from CO exposure or any chemicals that might have been in that smoke.”
“How is he?” Sylvie asked.
“He should be fine, but we’re taking precautions – none of us want him to miss his own wedding tomorrow, or his honeymoon because he tried to brush this off.”
“If he does miss it, it’s his own funeral you can attend instead.” Sylvie bit out. “I told him we should take this shift off, but he’s an idiot who thought ‘what’s the worst that could happen’. Famous last words, right?”
“His stats are good, but we’re going to take another chest x-ray later, and keep an eye on his blood counts, his oxygen levels, and the swelling in his airway.” Will sounded calm, which eased her anxiety. Which mostly left room for anger in its place.
“Can I see him?”
“He asked me to make sure you didn’t have any weapons on you before you came back, but he does want to see you.”
“He’s fine, though, right?” Herrmann asked for confirmation.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any complications, but we’re being careful. It’s hard to account for what might have been in the smoke in that warehouse.” Will paused. “I expect we can discharge him first thing in the morning – I’ve already flagged his file for the lab, the floor should be able to discharge him by 9 am.”
“Sylvie, I’ll take care of it. Go see him. We’ll go back and finish shift. Stella can stay here – Truck is out of service for the rest of shift anyway, with him here. I’ll be here first thing in the morning and get Matt to the church on time – I’m pretty sure that’s a best man’s duty.” Kelly reassured her.

She hadn’t planned to see him the day of the wedding, or at least, not after 8 in the morning, obviously the actual day of the wedding, once they got to the church she’d see him again. Chief had actually sent her home, gotten Stella cleared as relief in for 61, once visiting hours were over and she’d had to leave Matt. Chief said she was too upset. So she’d spent the night in her new house, with her parents in the guest suite downstairs and her brother and Allison in the rooms upstairs (because Mom still got her way on that ‘sharing rooms before you’re married’ rule, even in Sylvie’s house – at least while Mom was in the house). Explaining to them the night before her wedding that the groom was in the hospital instead of being on shift as the plan had been was interesting, but at least no one had panicked. Everyone else was calmer than she was. Kelly had called, promised her that he was going to be at the hospital early, Matt could shower and shave there if he had to, while waiting for his lab reports and discharge. Everything was picked up, the groomsmen all had tuxes, shoes, everything. Mom had checked on the florist and everything else yesterday while Sylvie was on shift. Matt called, briefly, late, and while his voice still sounded hoarse, it was much better than it had been earlier. She had a little trouble fully trusting his definition of ‘I’m fine’ but he did sound better and he wasn’t out of breath at all, or coughing very much. She probably wouldn’t have slept particularly well the night before her wedding anyway, but having Matt in the hospital did not really help. He owed her so much for scaring her like this.

They started the morning with a big breakfast for the bridal party at the Drake, because there was not going to be time for lunch today. Just for ease, her whole family had hotel rooms for the night, and Sylvie knew that Matt’s mother and sister did as well. Even Herrmann had ponied up for a room for the night, although Lee Henry was taking the kids home earlier in the evening at some point. Donna had arranged a babysitter for Terrence, who was picking him up just after the wedding party was announced at the reception. Basically, 51 was getting its party on tonight. Sylvie tried to relax, and enjoy her meal. She was just too nervous to really do so. At 8:47 am, she got a call from Matt.
“Matt, have you been discharged?”
“Clean bill of health, I’m already out the door.” Matt replied, his voice still a bit throaty but so much closer to his normal voice that a wave of relief hit her. “I’m sorry about all this-“
“Nope, you cannot get me upset again, not this morning.” Sylvie cut him off. “It’s over, you’re okay, and Kelly is driving you home to get ready, right?”
“Yeah – he said the photographer will be there in an hour? I’m not even supposed to leave for the church until noon.”
“Yes, but your groomsmen will all be at the loft in an hour for the groom’s side of the ‘getting ready’ pictures. I already saw Heather this morning, she’s got the boys up and they’ll be there a little early. Then the photographer comes to the salon to get our getting ready pictures, then we move to the church at noon.”
“Are you dressing at the church?”
“I am, you’re not.”
“Right, I knew that.”
“You’re feeling alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I hope you got more sleep than I did last night.”
“Probably a little.”
“I’ll see you in a few hours. I love you.”
“Love you too.” Sylvie hung up and turned her attention back to the group. “Matt’s fine, he’s headed home, Kelly’s going to get him ready and we’re back on schedule.”

After breakfast, they went straight to the salon. Matt had arranged the limos for the entire day, well, at least until they made it to the Drake for the reception. With three make-up stylists and three hair stylists, they could just get everyone in within the necessary 3-hour window. Nancy was there, and Sylvie got to introduce the two mothers for the first time. Thankfully, despite Matt’s nerves about that meeting, Mom had come prepared for lots of small talk – Christie and Violet helped, too, though Violet had hit it off with Caitlin and the two teenage girls mostly kept to themselves. Sylvie felt a little overwhelmed, as she got through make-up, a manicure, and hair, all within those three hours. Her bridesmaids rotated around her, all having time to stop by for a chat, but also needing to be taken off for their own hair and make-up. The salon provided snacks and mimosas, which was nice – though Sylvie was starting to think about curtailing any beverages because if she had to pee while in her dress that was going to be a production. She was grateful that she’d left Allison out of the wedding party though, it meant she got texts with reassurances that her dad and brother were up, getting ready, and going to be on-time to the church. Her advance agent at the church – Trudy – also texted to say that all the bridesmaids dresses were there, the florist had delivered everything but the bouquets already, decoration was going on pace, and the bouquets were due at noon. Sylvie was quite confident that Trudy would make sure it was all perfect. Sylvie fired off a quick text to Kelly.
*Make sure Matt gets lunch, he’ll be grumpy if he isn’t fed on time.*
*You think Mouch will forget a mealtime?* Kelly replied a moment later. *It’s covered, don’t worry.*
*You’re the best, Kelly.*
*I know.*

The photographer came and got the salon-based getting ready pictures, and then it was time to go the church. She, of course, went straight to the bride’s room and everyone started to get into their bridesmaid dresses. Sylvie had let her bridesmaids come shopping with her to pick out the dress, in part because they all had to get them quickly – no time for ordering and waiting for them to come in. She had had veto, of course, but she didn’t need to use it because they’d settled on a beautiful full-length chiffon dress with a deep sweetheart neckline and narrow straps (because dancing would happen, and straps were also needed for church). There was a cute long strappy bow on the back and a nice slit up the leg that looked nice not risqué, especially on the two junior bridesmaids. The scarlet color was striking on pretty much every skin tone, too. The florist ran slightly late, but Trudy still announced at 12:15 that the bouquets had arrived.
Only Stella and her mother had seen her dress before. Sylvie had wanted to keep it a secret, not just from Matt. She didn’t even know why, she just did. Her parents, perhaps happy that Matt was paying for the vast majority of the wedding, had given her a ridiculous budget for a farm-girl’s wedding dress, though she hadn’t actually spent all of it. Her dress was a ball-gown, just the type she’d always pictured, with its own deep sweetheart neckline (and the appropriately lifting bra underneath to give her better cleavage because she was going to look the most beautiful and sexy she had ever looked on her wedding day, thank you very much). The multiple layers of the skirt hid a great little secret: the train and the bottom few inches of the dress actually buttoned on and could be removed for the reception (making dancing a lot easier). There was a lace overlay that gave it a classic princess dress look, at least to Sylvie’s eye, and she’d opted for a tiara not a veil. It was beautiful, but not easy to put on. She hadn’t needed this much help to dress since she was probably a toddler, she figured, but it was so worth it. She knew it when her bridesmaids reacted as they did, but definitely when she stepped out into the hallway and Dad nearly lost it. They took a round of pictures to save time after the ceremony, Sylvie with her family and all her bridesmaids, outside in the little garden right next to the church. Then it was time, and they headed into the back of the church.

She had wondered what she’d think walking down that aisle, behind Stella, on her father’s arm, towards Matt and her future. It wasn’t as deep or profound as she’d thought: there was a bit of ‘please don’t trip’ mixed in with idle notices of all their guests, a hope that Dad held it together because there was no way Mom was going to, a brief notice that the music was beautiful and the church was beautiful, and then, as Stella genuflected and headed left at the end of the aisle, Sylvie just saw Matt and it turned out she was not entirely ready to see him there, in that tuxedo, looking like a model for a bride’s magazine and every one of her dreams all thrown together, but also a lot like he was having trouble believing what he was seeing. She’d been going for shock and awe, of course, but one of them had to be together and she did not think of either of them was at much of a coherent point right now. Her father gave way for Matt, who took her arm and apparently his Catholic childhood kicked in or he just didn’t blank on the rehearsal quite as much as she suddenly did because he guided her to where they were supposed to be so the priest could start the service.
“O God, who in creating the human race willed that man and wife should be one, join, we pray, in a bond of inseparable love these your servants who are to be united in the covenant of Marriage, so that, as you make their love fruitful, they may become, by your grace, witnesses to charity itself. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.” Sylvie forgot, but at least Matt joined in the shared “Amen” from the congregation. Get it together, girl, stop just staring at Matt. Yes, he is that nice to look at, but this is important.
Luke Herrmann accomplished the first reading perfectly. Sylvie had always loved the passage from Genesis that ended in the purpose of marriage – that they should leave their birth families and become themselves another family. She had chosen this particular reading (from the acceptable list – apparently Catholics had pretty solid rules about everything) though Matt had thought that the emphasis on woman coming from man was maybe a bit sexist. There was a song in response (which Sylvie barely heard, because Matt kept distracting just by being Matt and her husband, on her wedding day), and then a second reading, which Max Herrmann delivered calmly and well if not quite with the panache his brother had – Sylvie’s favorite reading was definitely this bit of Corinthians. Matt had also wanted this one as his first choice, and she knew why. Matt hardly needed the reminder at the end that love endured all things, God knew he loved as deeply and solidly as it surely was possible for a human to love, but she knew that its emphasis on without love one has nothing really spoke to Matt. She just thought the sentiment was beautiful.
The Alleluia chorus – and yes, Matt was actually singing along sort of softly, but she could tell, despite his protests, that he had a lovely tenor voice – was followed by the reading from the Gospel. This, of course, the priest read, and had in fact been his own suggestion of the listed acceptable readings:
“A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. The Gospel of the Lord.”

After everyone took their seats (Sylvie could hear them moving behind her, she just hoped that everyone was following along in the program because God knew Catholic services could be confusing for the poor non-Catholics who didn’t know when to sit and stand and kneel and stand and sit and say the right words at the exact same cadence as everyone else) Father moved from where he had given the reading to stand before Sylvie and Matt, who were kneeling (pretty much the whole time) before the altar. She had met the priest several times, knew that he had known Matt since he was a boy, and that he’d promised to keep the homily rather short. Other than that, she had no idea what he was going to say.

“Matt and Sylvie came to me some months ago, asking me to preside here at their marriage, and I’ve met with them several times as they have planned and prepared for this day. I have known them as a couple only these months, but on the first day they came to me, I knew that this was a special couple. Not just because I baptized Matthew James Casey so many years ago – in fact, he was my first baptism as a young priest, and a bit of a rush at that. His mother had a difficult labor, he was born early, and there was some concern that the boy would live. Live he has, and done all that the Lord has commanded of his children – and he came to me, with a woman of the same character and the same unselfish disposition, so yes, I knew this would be a special family they begin here before us today.
“I have married quite a few couples over my long time as a priest. Each is a happy occasion for couples wonderfully in love with one another. I have yet, in all these years, had the same experience of a groom extolling the virtues of his beloved to me: to hear Matt tell it, surely there is no earthly creation closer to God’s perfection than is Sylvie. And yes, Matt is blushing horribly up here, I can assure you.” Sylvie almost laughed herself, as the rest of the congregation did, not in any mean-spirited way but just because most of them did know Matt so well that just being the center of attention tended to make him uncomfortable, and then having his softer side highlighted, well, yes, he was blushing, not out of shame just out of…being Matt.
“I have known Matt since he was a boy. I was the parish priest until he was thirteen years old – one of the most angelic looking altar boys to ever get suspended for cussing in the sacristy, I can assure you.” Another round of laughter. “But he was always the noblest of boys, despite his unfortunate tendency to creative uses of the English language – always the first to rush in to help someone, to protect someone, and to do it in a quiet way that wanted no attention for himself. We lost touch, in his teen years, for many reasons, but a few years ago, we met again and I was delighted when he asked me to celebrate with him and his intended, today.
“Sylvie, what a joy it has truly been – as much as Matt has ‘talked you up’ to me, in our private conversations you have been as truly delighted in him. It was, in fact, one of our conversations, Sylvie, which inspired me to recommend today’s Gospel for your marriage: truly, I have not presided over the joining of two people who better fulfill the Beatitudes than do you and Matt.
“In the first, those who are poor in spirit – truly, you both remain in spirit poor: beggars before God, aware of your dependence upon Him for all good things and that belief in His works and His plan is often a painful path, yet one you both choose to tread daily in serving others. The humble, surely, as well, I can promise that you are both truly humble – preferring always to speak of the work of others, rather than what you yourselves have done. I know that both of you also deeply mourn for the wrongs in the world: the injustices you see in your work and in the world around us, and, as well, in your own personal lives and histories. Yet, perhaps those deep familiarities with such things is what has led you both to thirst so truly for better things to come, both in this life insomuch as we all must strive to create justice among us, but also in the next life.
“Blessed are the merciful, the Gospel tells us as well. What can be more merciful than Sylvie’s daily life in her career? She carries mercy with her to every call – and if you don’t believe me, just talk to Matt. He will also tell you that she shows rather a lot of mercy to him quite regularly, an admittance of his own need for forgiveness fitting in a man who has forgiven wrongs against him on scales few of us wish to experience. I also know he struggles with that forgiveness, but I promise you, Matt, that you manage at all speaks of the great mercy in your soul. Blessed are the pure of heart, the Gospel tells us, those of singular good intentions, and again, I have seen such depth of this virtue in both Sylvie and Matt. Blessed are the peacemakers – here, Matt, I suggest you let your wife lead.” Sylvie could hear from the laughter the clusters of people that knew Matt best. He was a wonderful man, and usually had a long fuse, but once lit, well, peacemaker was not the word anyone would use – unless you meant the Colt Peacemaker, which she was pretty sure the Gospel did not mean.
“That temper of yours, well, remember to strive for peace, but in this, Sylvie offers you a wonderful balance, as God intends marriage to provide. The last beatitude Jesus provides, though, that those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake shall have great rewards, and I know that both of you have suffered at times for your convictions in doing the right thing even when it is far from the easy thing, or what some might even call the ‘smart’ thing. Your chosen careers, of course, have at their very root a deep love for your fellow humans, even to great risk to yourselves. Your rewards truly shall be great in Heaven, as God has brought you together to encourage each other and to provide strength for each other in continuing in the path you have so far faithfully followed.
“For, my friends, truly God has ordained marriage to be a lifelong partnership between man and woman, that two shall become one and in that one be stronger for the uniting – stronger in their faith, stronger in their will, stronger in their love not only for each other but for all life. It is this strengthening by union that we celebrate today, as together we witness in love and support the matrimony of Sylvie and Matt.”
Sylvie had never been so grateful for waterproof makeup in her life. She had started crying softly halfway through the homily, and she had a feeling she wasn’t really going to manage to stop for a while yet. She stood, with Matt who of course kept her steady as she carefully stood (the dress was beautiful but kneeling in a dress that covered your feet and then standing was not as easy as one might think) and this was the big moment, she supposed. This was when they would officially get married. She got lost in Matt’s eyes for just a moment, but thankfully tuned back in at the right moment,
“Matt and Sylvie, have you come here to enter into Marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?”
“We have.”
“Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Marriage, to love and honor each other as long as you both shall live?”
“We are.”
“Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”
“We are.”
” Since it is your intention to enter the covenant of Holy Matrimony, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and his Church.” Matt knew his cue perfectly, of course, and he had insisted they had to memorize the vows rather than repeat them. Sylvie wasn’t sure why it had mattered so much to him, but at least she got to go second.
“I, Matthew James, take you, Sylvie Elizabeth, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” Matt smiled at her, his eyes were watery but that was the sort of smile he so rarely had, like he was in a moment of the truest sort of happiness and it distracted her for just a second because all she really wanted to do was kiss him. But she had to wait before she got to do that, officially. Matt nodded, and subtly mouthed along with her, in case she might have forgotten her lines.
“I, Sylvie Elizabeth, take you, Matthew James, for my lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”
“May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God who joined together our first parents in paradise, strengthen and bless in Christ the consent you have declared before the Church, so that what God joins together, no one may put asunder.”
They exchanged rings, and she remembered those lines – though again a little grateful that Matt had to go first for all these things. He was, after all, the Catholic one between them so he should know all this by heart anyway. Well, maybe not by heart, but be a lot more familiar than she was. She honestly spaced for pretty much the rest of the wedding. She followed Matt’s lead, but she just focused on him. She was Mrs. Matthew Casey now, for the rest of her life. She heard enough to know that Kenny and Annabelle Herrmann had been well-practiced on their reading of the intercessions, and she of course chimed in on the Our Father readily, noting not for the first time how Matt bowed his head a little deeper when asking for forgiveness of his trespasses. Then they knelt again, Matt steadying her as always, and the priest offered a final nuptial blessing. They stood again, and Father Foley dismissed them with a reminder to “Go in peace, to glorify the Lord” and after a surprisingly hearty “Amen” in return, Father Foley finally paused, nodded to Matt and with a smile said,
“Now, Matt, as the service is ended and I am happy to announce you man and wife – you may kiss your bride.” Matt did, apparently willing to overcome all his usual reticence and kissed her long and hard (though still properly for the setting – it wasn’t a make-out session) literally in front of God and pretty much everyone they knew.

Chapter 14: To Sylvie and Matt!

Chapter Text

She had warned the photographer that they needed to pace the pictures with the groom carefully. She’d not told her why, of course, just that Matt was uncomfortable with having his photograph taken especially if he wasn’t aware of it and asked first, and he would need breaks between the rounds of pictures he was supposed to be in. They took several in the church: her with her bridesmaids, him with his groomsmen, the couple together (a few of those), and including of course them with her parents, Leo, and Allison, and one of she and Matt with his mother, Christie, and Violet, then the big one with the entire wedding party. Then they went out into the garden beside the church and took several more photos, some of just her and Matt, and a few with just the bridesmaids and the couple, then the couple and the groomsmen, and Matt had insisted on the photographer taking family pictures for the Herrmanns and Bodens while everyone was already all dressed up (and before the kids started running around at the reception). Sylvie had broken her own rule and had the photographer snap one of Matt with Terrence on the sly – it was adorable. She and Stella posed together, and then they forced Matt and Kelly into a picture of just the two of them. Then the whole wedding party piled into two limos, while the rest of the guests got on their respective ‘tour’ buses that Matt had arranged, and the wedding party headed for their location wedding pictures. Sylvie had really pushed for these, though Matt had pointed out it wasn’t like they were ever going to forget they got married in Chicago or what Chicago looked like – they lived there.

They had four stops on their tour. The first was the Adler Planetarium, not for the Planetarium itself but rather the view back towards the skyline which was beautiful. It was a perfect sunny September Saturday, and they took a few formal shots with the skyline but then had a lot of more fun, relaxed shots – including a couple of the groomsmen just goofing off entirely. Then they got the semi-obligatory shots at Buckingham Fountain, and in front of the Chicago Theater on State Street. The last stop was North Avenue Beach, another angle on the skyline and also just to prove to everyone who might ever doubt that yes, Chicago had actual beaches. She was so busy, she was sure that the photographer and her assistant were getting shots Sylvie didn’t even know about, but she kept an eye on Matt. Kelly was still doing his job fantastically, because every time Matt started to look a little squirrelly about something, Kelly said something (probably hopefully teasing) to make him laugh. She had a feeling that the picture of Matt and Kelly looking like they were about to throw Mouch in the lake was going to be one of the favorites from today – Herrmann and Chief laughing in the background, Griffin and Ben egging them on in, and even Mouch laughing, a whole bunch of really grown men acting like they were the Darden boys’ age. Kelly insisted on a few with he, Matt, and Ben and Griffin, too. By the time they headed for the Drake, Sylvie was already tired – and they had hours more to go.

Dillon was, of course, completely on top of everything at the Drake. That was his job, and he was damned good at it. Sylvie relaxed a lot when they got there, because from here, it felt like it wasn’t her job anymore to direct traffic, although really, Mom had been doing a lot of that so Sylvie could just enjoy it (Mom and Trudy – putting Trudy in charge of organizing everything at the church had been a stroke of genius if she did say so herself, people just naturally did what Trudy said). The tour buses Matt had arranged for everyone pulled up just after their limo had dropped them off at the Drake. Dillon’s staff ushered everyone for their wedding into the Grand Ballroom. Matt had eschewed having too many people in the receiving line, it was really just she and Matt, which she actually liked (he hadn’t said as much, but she thought it was to avoid his mother being in it – if they put her parents in it, they’d have to include Nancy). Mom and Dad had already greeted all the guests from Fowlerton last night, after all, and no one was actually here to meet the wedding party. It was a nice way to at least say hello to and acknowledge all of their guests, while still having some hope of not spending all night doing the rounds at the reception to make sure they got to everyone. Then there was a really quick set of pictures, mostly anything with Terrence that they still wanted because his babysitter was there to pick him up. Donna watched fondly as Matt posed for a picture with just Terrence, and then one of Matt, Chief, and Terrence.

“I feel like I should apologize that he calls your adorable son ‘T-bone’.” Sylvie shook her head, still not used to that, but Donna just laughed.

“Don’t. Terrence loves it. He says all the firemen guys have nicknames – though he thinks Captain is Casey’s nickname, Casey is his ‘real name’ and he’s been very confused by people calling him Matt all day today.”
“Thank you, for not…for being so normal about everything. I know it had to be awkward for you, with the pictures and-“
“A little, I guess.” Donna brushed it off easily. “Mostly, I felt so bad for Matt. No one could really be prepared for that, but I think men even more than women aren’t used to thinking about potentially being vulnerable to those sorts of things.” Donna paused, then continued, “Wallace is very fond of your husband, you as well, but you know, he looks to Matt to take his place someday – he trusts him to look after his house and his people once he’s gone: promoted or retired, either way.”
“I think everyone but Matt knows that.” Sylvie nodded.

“I just wanted to say, because Wallace won’t, that we trust Matt to take care of 51 when Wallace can’t, and we trust you to take care Matt when he won’t. I’m so happy that the two of you have built what you have together. Congratulations, Sylvie.”

“Thank you.” Sylvie didn’t know what else to say, so she just hugged Donna and tried not to cry again. Apparently one of the big tasks of your wedding day was trying to regulate the tears.

“Eat something.” Stella handed her a plate of hors d’oeuvres, after the receiving line and quick run of pictures was finally over. “It’s been a long time since breakfast, and you had at least two glasses of champagne while we were taking pictures.”
“Is this in the maid-of-honor handbook or something? Thank you!” Sylvie ate as politely as she could, but she was honestly starving.

“Don’t worry, Kelly’s got Matt, too.” Stella cut her off, before she could even ask the next thing that popped into her mind. Sure enough, Matt reappeared next to her with a plate of his own in hand. Kelly knew him well, it was piled high mostly with stuff from the seafood station because it turned out that Matt Casey, from the middle of a continent, loved crab. He even liked imitation crab meat, which this was definitely not.

“And, our next delivery.” Stella indicated, as Foster handed her a drink. Neither she nor Matt had wanted a truly ‘signature’ co*cktail that was completely new because then at least half their guests might not like it and most would have no idea what it was. So instead they’d gone with two relative classics for the his/her options that Dillon offered: a scotch-based drink that was apparently called a Chicago Fire Extinguisher (Matt’s, obviously) and just an old-school margarita for hers. Emily held out a margarita, which Sylvie gladly accepted. Matt had a drink in hand as well, and for a few minutes, it was nice to just take a minute together. Well, together with half their wedding party. But there was a convenient little table nearby, so they could managed to eat and drink at the same time, grabbing just a bit of ‘down time’ from their reception.

“Still think I’m wrong about us being too tired tonight for any of that fancy underwear you debated?” Matt whispered in her ear. She’d let him win on that particular debate, not that she hadn’t bought a few special things, but those were for the honeymoon. She’d gone with the most comfortable, not the sexiest, undergarments for today.

“Who needs underwear at all?” Sylvie replied, then kissed him. She couldn’t help laughing when she heard the sound of clinking glasses, which was really supposed to work the other way she thought – not an alarm on them getting caught kissing but an encouragement to do so.

“Are you seriously not….” Matt asked, whispering a little harshly in her ear this time.

“You’ll find out later, won’t you?”

“I married an evil woman.” Matt chuckled, pulling her into his side with the only arm he had free – he still had a drink in his left, though his now-empty plate was abandoned on the table. He kissed her temple, and kind of nuzzled into her. “I love it.”

“Matt, Sylvie, it’s just about time for the first course.” Dillon appeared as if by magic, subtly directing them towards the head table. “We need to introduce everyone.”

The introductions of the wedding party had been kept simple at Matt’s request. He didn’t want any jokes or extra commentary, just a short, classic, simple introduction, though that did include how each person was known to them. She couldn’t help a gasp of delight when she heard them announced for the first time as Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Casey, and it sounded like the ballroom exploded in applause and whistles and yes, a lot of clinking glasses. Matt agreeably kissed her in the middle of the dance floor, earning another round of loud applause and whistles. She hardly minded kissing her husband (her husband, wow that was a crazy amazing thought) but the idea of doing it on-demand all night was a bit off-putting. They settled at the middle of the head table, with Stella on Matt’s left and Kelly on her right, with alternating the groomsmen and bridesmaids as they went. The head table was of course visible to everyone at the reception, so there was absolutely no ‘hiding’ from the fact that attention was mostly on them. As they went through dinner with clinking glasses every so often, she could tell Matt was starting to get annoyed by it as well. At least it wasn’t every minute or something, but she sort of felt like a…well, like an actress playing a role waiting on a cue.

“Is there a way to get people to stop doing that?” Matt asked. “I feel like it’s ‘dance for me monkey boy’ up here.” Sylvie laughed, because it was just such a great way to put that and described it perfectly.

“I think if we start to ignore it, they’ll get the hint.” She told him. At least they got to eat. She’d heard (and read online) quite a few stories about brides and grooms being so busy making the rounds to talk to guests that they missed their own meals. No thank you. Not least because if she didn’t feed Matt regularly, he got grumpy – not in an ostentatious way, but definitely grumpy. And they’d both get drunk faster, given how much alcohol was already flowing. She followed Matt’s example and mostly stuck to the water glass with her dinner. As the last course (except dessert, which would come later, with the cake cutting) ended, Kelly shoved a couple of actual linen handkerchiefs at her with a smile.

“You’re probably going to want these.”
“Oh, God, everyone is going to make me cry. And I have to speak, too.” Sylvie realized, shaking her head. Dad was first, and she had a feeling the waterworks were going to start then and just keep going. Their emcee handed Dad a microphone as he stood, moving to stand behind Sylvie, and the room quickly went quiet.

“Good evening, everyone. On behalf of Cathy, and myself, and Sylvie’s brother Leo, I’d like to thank you all for being here with us tonight to celebrate this happy occasion. A special thank you to everyone who has traveled to be here tonight, especially our youngest groomsmen Ben and Griffin Darden, who came up from Florida. I know it means a lot to Matt and Sylvie that you are all here.” Dad paused, clearly taking a deep breath and gathering himself. Public speaking was never his thing, but she could tell he was also trying not to cry, which was going to make her cry.
“I’ve had thirty years to get ready for this moment. I even had several months’ warning I’d have to make this speech on this night. It took a few drafts, quite a few, with some regular edits by Cathy to make sure I didn’t embarrass her or Sylvie too much. Matt, I can promise you now, get used to it - you’re going to be very well-managed by your wife, I know who raised her.” Light-hearted laughter spread through the room, before Dad continued, “Despite all the time I’ve had, I’m still not ready. I’m not sure a father is ever really ready to let go of his little girl. Sylvie is the most compassionate, loving, and loyal woman I know – tied, I have to say, with her mother, like I said, I know where she gets all her best traits. Seeing Sylvie today, so radiant and so beautifully happy, is both one of the greatest joys of my life and also a moment of some sadness. She hasn’t been daily in my home in many years, but all her life I’ve been the man she’s turned to when she just needs that bit of love, protection, or explanation of what an illegal formation is.” Dad paused for the ripples of laughter again.

“Now, there’s another man in her life, who will take over that role. It’s sad, yes, but also, in so many ways, another joy. Matt, I know that now, I can finally stop worrying about who will take care of my little girl when I can’t, some day in the distant future when I get old and I’m not scary enough anymore to chase away the monsters. I don’t think she could’ve found a better ‘knight in shining armor’ to take my place.

“Before I turn the microphone over to my new son-in-law, I have both the honor and the privilege of leading the first toast. So, if you’d all raise your glass, and join with me in wishing Sylvie and Matt a long, healthy, and very happy future together.”

Sylvie was crying, and she stood up to hug him while he handed Matt the microphone and everyone took their drinks to start the toasting. Matt waited a moment for Dad to go back to his seat, and for Sylvie to gather herself.

“Thank you, Chuck – and Cathy because I know who kept that speech from devolving into disbelief that Sylvie could ever marry a Bears fan.” More laughter, most of it from the Fowlerton contingent, but certainly not all of it. “Most of you know me pretty well, and know that speeches aren’t really my thing. In fact, I’ve been accused of words in general not being my thing – Chief once called me a man of few words and Herrmann corrected him that I was a man of no words. Luckily, Sylvie is a very modern woman and has fittingly decided that I’m not going to be permitted to speak on behalf of us both – she’s going to take over pretty soon, and do a much better job of it. She keeps me humble by being smarter, prettier, and far better-spoken than I could ever be. Now that I’ve gotten to know Chuck and Cathy, I can see she inherited all of those traits from her mother. Chuck told me I’d be well-managed, but I have to say, Chuck, having been welcomed into your family – there’s absolutely no shame for a man in being well-managed by the adoring women in his life, and I hope I’m lucky enough to be as adored and well-managed as you have been.” Matt paused, letting chuckles die down again.

“I’m incredibly grateful to my in-laws, who have raised a daughter with the dignity, courage, and determination she puts into everything she does, every day. I’ve heard a lot of stories about her years growing up on the farm in Fowlerton, and the backbone of each story was the love and support and encouragement she has always received from both of you. So, thank you, Cathy and Chuck, for raising the most amazing woman I’ve ever known and for somehow seeing fit to welcome me into her life and yours.

“Before Sylvie takes over, I’d like to thank a few more people. My groomsmen – Christopher Herrmann, who has been an example to me for many years of the sort of family man I aspire to be: if I can end up half the husband and father you are, Herrmann, I’ll be both lucky and proud. Randall McHolland, sorry, Sylvie, I can’t it just sounds like he’s dying if I don’t call him Mouch.” There was a ripple of laughter, as Matt turned to address her with a shrug, and Sylvie had to chuckle a little herself. It really did sound strange.

“Mouch, you’ve been at my side since I became an officer and joined Truck 81. We’ve been in a lot of tight spots and even though I don’t think I’ve ever seen you run, you’ve had my back on every call and every shift for almost twelve years. Chief, you took a chance on a young lieutenant who was mostly known for being the idiot who did a backflip in full gear off a twenty-foot ladder to win a race at a firemen’s muster. I wish I could say it was Darden’s and Severide’s idea, but it wasn’t. Thanks for believing in me – and for making sure that I was reminded many times of how stupid I was to try it and if I ever did anything that stupid again, you’d not only have my bugles you’d have my ass. You’ve been a great mentor and a great friend.”

”Kelly’s going to make his own speech here in a few minutes, and I’ve been told not to steal his thunder by talking about how we met or anything like that. Kel, if I could’ve designed an older brother who’d push me to be my best every day, who’d have my back whenever I need it, to kick me in the butt when I need that too, and to tease me endlessly about everything, he would’ve turned out a lot like you. Only uglier because frankly, I got pretty sick of being the quirky friend. You try standing next to Kelly Severide pretty much your entire adult life and try to get a woman’s attention: it’s annoying as hell.” Everyone laughed, and Matt grinned as Kelly made some sort of hand gesture that she was pretty sure was subtly obscene.

“Luckily, I found a girl who was willing to look past my clearly substandard appearance – at least in relation to officers at House 51. I’m supposed to say something beautiful and touching about my wife, but,” Matt’s voice broke suddenly. He paused, taking a visibly deep breath, “I probably couldn’t get through it, and I can’t put into words what she has come to mean to me anyway. Thank God she loves me despite being a ‘reticent jerk’ – her words, by the way – because I can never tell her enough how unfathomably beautiful she is to me: and while I do find her ravishing in appearance, I am more impressed by and in love with her beautiful soul.” Sylvie knew she had to speak in a few moments, and she was so going to smack him for making her ball like a baby before she had to do that.

“Back onto firmer ground for me. Lastly, I have to thank Ben and Griffin, and their mother Heather. Thank you for being here, and thank you for almost eighteen years of being ‘Uncle Matt’ - it’s not only been a joy, but also made me incredibly proud all these years to watch you guys become young men. If you’d all join me, I want to toast the memory of the man who is here in spirit, who got me through the fire academy and was always the first guy to tell me I could, if I ever thought ‘I can’t’ – to Andy Darden.” Everyone made a pretty hearty toast – though the tables full of firefighters were clearly the loudest. Matt handed her the microphone, and she desperately took a couple deep breaths to bring her emotions back under control.

“Thank you all for being here with me to celebrate the fact that I won the handsome prince lottery. Not a lot of girls get to actually find Prince Charming, but I did – even if he’s much more at home in turnout gear than any sort of fancy Disney-Prince-worthy outfits. He may be humble about it, but I know – and ladies you all know it too – that when little girls kiss frogs they expect them to turn into a man like Matt.” Sylvie started, waiting for the knowing chuckles to die down before she continued.

“Usually just grooms get to make a lovely speech about his bride and her family, and I wanted to have my chance to make Matt cry in turn. I’ll get to that after I quickly thank my bridesmaids – Chloe and Lily have become some of my closest friends, and they were never afraid to share their boyfriends when I need Joe or Brian to just be that guy, girls you all know what I’m talking about, sometimes you just need that guy friend to tell you if it’s you or that guy really is just a jerk. Right? So thanks for sharing, girls.
“Emily has been my partner at work for two years now. She’s also the person here most responsible for pushing, pulling, taunting, and constantly prodding me into asking Matt out. Yes, I asked him out. Actually, I told him we were dating now. Sometimes he just needs to be told things, for his own good. But it was Emily who, through steady if annoying persistence, convinced me that going out with a guy I work with was not the worst thing I could do. She also was always there to remind me that Captain Casey is pretty darn cute and wouldn’t stay on the market forever. So thank you, Emily.

“Stella, what can I say? You’ve been my friend in the firehouse, the female companion in a place full of frankly smelly, gross, snoring men. You’ve also shared a lot of my dating life with Matt, mostly by nature of them being roommates and best friends: I don’t think anything would’ve worked if we didn’t get along, considering that Matt and Kelly are, well, Matt-and-Kelly. We may not have their symbiotic we-don’t-even-need-words thing down yet, but I know we’ll get there with just a few more years of being the very best of friends. Thank you for all your help and support, especially in keeping me together the last couple weeks.” Sylvie paused, checked her notes, and managed a sip of her water.

“I also want to take this opportunity to thank Matt’s family. Nancy, you raised and protected an incredible man, and thank you for doing your best to make sure that the little soft squishy marshmallow parts of him that make him blush like he’s doing right now, stuck around because those are my favorite parts, and they’re the parts that make him the kind, noble, and brave man that he is. Christie and Violet, thank you for welcoming me so warmly into your family and into your lives. I’m so excited to be ‘Aunt Sylvie,’ Violet, thank you for letting me have the honor of that new role.

“Lastly, before I hand over to Stella, want to recognize another of Matt’s families. Jo and Bill Gallagher, and their kids, who did so much to help shape Matt into the man he is. Thank you, for welcoming him into your home, when you certainly didn’t need to and when things were so very hard for him. If you’d all raise your glass, it is my joy to ask you to toast all our families, that families old and new alike enjoy many more years of celebrations together, to family!”

Stella hugged her as she accepted the microphone, and already had her champagne glass in hand.

“The speeches are always the longest part of a wedding reception, and I want to leave plenty of time for Kelly, so I’ll keep it short and hopefully sweet. I’m so happy to be here, celebrating with all of you, the fact that Sylvie and Matt finally saw what everyone else already knew at least a year before they did: that the two sweetest, most generous, and most annoyingly Eagle Scout-like people any of us have ever met are clearly destined for each other. To Matt and Sylvie!” Stella’s speech was somehow perfectly Stella – to the point, simple, and effective. She then handed the microphone off to Kelly, who had stood up and was now standing directly behind Matt. Sylvie was pretty sure that no pranks were planned but with the guys from 51, it was hard to be absolutely certain.

“My name is Kelly Severide, and I’m the unfortunate victim of some sort of vicious cycle. Emily told Sylvie she had feelings for Casey, Sylvie told Matt they were dating, and Casey told me I was his best man. At some point, I’ll tell someone something I’m supposed to ask them and the cycle will continue. I’m apparently supposed to talk about how Casey and I met, and how we all knew Sylvie was the one for him, and then come up with a nice toast. I was given pretty specific directions. I tried to do that, in the first draft.

“Then I remembered Casey told me he’d kill me if I told any embarrassing stories, and he does still have a key to my place, so I’ve had to adjust that outline a bit so I don’t talk about the fact that I met him the day Andy and I were supposed to meet for drinks but he was running late because he had to take Casey for a haircut. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, back in those days, Matt Casey had hair longer than an inch, in fact, so long it wasn’t permitted at the Fire Academy and he needed someone to hold his hand as his Barbie-blond hair was cut off. Andy used to tease him about wishing they’d had video cameras in phones back then – they would’ve gone viral, cutting off his beautiful hair. By the time I met him that night, Andy had convinced him to practically shave his head. Andy had been telling me about this kid he’d met at the Academy, and he brought to the bar this kid: Casey looked about fourteen years old and like the gear outweighed him.” Kelly paused to let the laughter quiet down.

“I just remembered I’m supposed to call him ‘Matt’ in my speech. Sorry, Sylvie, I’ll try to remember, but I think I’ve only called him by his first name a dozen times in almost twenty years of friendship. Anyway, I thought about all the stories I could tell about him that were appropriate for this venue, with his wife and in-laws, and his mother and sister and niece all in the room, and I realized I don’t have any. So I’ll have to go with just some of my favorites. Don’t worry, Case, I’ll keep it to stuff that’s passed the statute of limitations.

“Andy and Casey were friends first, they went through the academy after I did, but Andy and I grew up together, so when they become friends, I got stuck with Casey. Of all the things Andy could’ve left me, I got Matt. If Andy was here, he’d probably tell me the only thing more valuable he had was Heather and the boys, and well, Heather would’ve killed him again if he’d tried leaving me her. He wouldn’t be wrong: if you’ve ever seen ‘Stand by Me’ there’s a line at the end of it, says he’s never had any friends later on like the ones he had when he was twelve and asks Jesus, does anyone? I do. If you remember your friends from when you were twelve, well, in a lot of ways, that’s Casey and me.” Kelly paused, and Sylvie almost handed Matt one of the handkerchiefs, but calling any attention to his visible emotion was probably just going to embarrass him, so she let it alone.

“So, let me give you a picture of young Matt Casey – once he’d cut his apparently beautiful hair off – he was twenty-one years old, looked like he’d never used a razor in his life, and weighed about a buck sixty soaking wet: you could never get enough food in him to make up for the fact that he never sat still: Academy recruits aren’t supposed to have outside jobs, but he managed to get around those rules and was always on some construction site somewhere. My favorite early-days story, though, is the time he streaked Wicker Park. Yes, all of you laughing in disbelief, this man, Mr. Responsibility-and-Maturity, back before he had any dignity he needed to maintain as an officer, did indeed once strip entirely naked and run through the park – and the fountain – in the mistaken belief that if he did, we’d buy his drinks for the rest of the night. We didn’t buy him drinks, but he did get a couple phone numbers which Andy said was a lot more valuable.”

Kelly paused again, letting the laughter die down again. Sylvie had to give it to him, he was doing a pretty good job of balancing the funny with the more serious bits. Who knew Kelly Severide could give a speech?

“More seriously, and I want to keep this short because it’s just about time we get on to the real joke of the night which is watching Casey dance, I don’t know a better man than Matt Casey. He’s one of the finest firefighters I’ve ever known or worked with. He’s the first guy there to help a friend or a victim he’s met at a call. There are a lot of unspoken unwritten rules in a firehouse, a hierarchy and network that new guys always have to navigate. There are a few of these at 51. First, if you have to sleep near Mouch, bring earplugs. Second, Herrmann never lacks an opinion, just ask him about anything. One of the most important things about 51, though, is that we all look to Matt when we have to make the hardest decisions. He’s the most honest, upright, and moral guy any of us will ever know: probably what made him a horrible politician. It makes him a perfect fit for Sylvie, though, because one of the other truths we know at 51 is that Sylvie has the biggest heart of anyone you’ll ever meet. Between the two of them, we pretty much can’t go wrong following their lead. So I hope you’ll all join me in wishing them all the best as they start their life together and that all of that good karma they put into the world will come back to them. To Sylvie and Matt!”

Chapter 15: Fighting Goat Confetti

Chapter Text

With the speeches all out of the way, it was time for their first dance. Matt was not the most confident dancer, but he really wasn’t awful. He’d been awful at Zumba, but that wasn’t really dancing a lot of it was knowing the moves already so you could keep up. He had a nice sense of rhythm and the music. He just needed to relax a little. Which, she had to admit, was kind of hard to do with everyone they knew staring at them.

“Remind me why we didn’t skip this tradition?” Matt asked softly as the music started.

“Because I love to dance and you love me. And any time I have the excuse to be in your arms, I want to be.” She paused. “Just make sure we don’t step on my train.”

“It’s a slow song, I’ll be careful.” Matt chuckled, pulling her as closely to him as he could while accounting for the length of her dress. She had never even heard this song before they started planning the reception, but when Matt had played it for her, she’d agreed that it was perfect. And most importantly, it wasn’t a cliché over-used first-dance song which she’d wanted to avoid.

*Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love….*

She did her best to forget everything else but the feeling of this moment, with Matt, in his arms and together, the start of their forever. The song was four and a half minutes or so long, and it felt like time slowed down somehow. She willed herself to hold it together, and she just managed it, though it was close when Matt pulled her closer at the line about children asking to be born. She was pretty sure the song was about sex, at least parts of it seemed to be, but to her, it mostly spoke about the aging of a love – from its earliest stages (panic was about right) to its end. She didn’t mind at all when he kissed her as the song ended, though the moment was ruined a tiny bit by the resulting damn tinkling of the glasses.

They parted, and she moved to bring Dad out onto the dance floor. Matt had not wanted to do a mother-son dance at all, but had settled for sharing it with the dad-daughter dance. She knew Matt was hesitant to put his mother in the spotlight at all, a bit out of lingering embarrassment about his family history but also just because Nancy was…a little unpredictable. She could be alternately incredibly sweet and affectionate with her son, then turn around a minute later and be cutting and even cruel, then right back around to loving and proud. Sylvie didn’t want her mother-in-law to feel left out, though, not on a night like this, so Matt brought her out onto the dance floor as well, and made it through Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World with two sets of dry eyes whereas Sylvie was crying and so was dad (a little) by the end. Still, Nancy’s eyes looked at least a little damp, so there was that. Maybe Matt’s stoicism was just genetic. Sylvie had a tiny niggling fear that her mother-in-law just didn’t like her and didn’t approve of this wedding. Maybe it was just Nancy’s lingering anger over Matt’s firm refusal to bring Randy into the family picture taken earlier (Sylvie had tried, before the wedding, to reason with him that he was going to hurt his mother’s feelings, but Matt uncharacteristically did not seem to care – Randy might be his mother’s husband, but he wasn’t part of Matt’s family).

She had bribed the groomsmen and bridesmaids to lead the dancing to the next song, which was really the start of the DJ’s playlist for the night, and to a faster pace. As her wedding party happily (or mostly happily) brought their partners onto the dance floor to kick off the fact that everyone was supposed to be dancing now, or at least back at the opened bar getting ready to dance, Sylvie discretely slipped into a side room. Mom helped her change shoes to something flatter and they unbuttoned the bottom layer of her skirt. Now she could dance and move around the room without worrying about the train of her dress. It was also now short enough that the scarlet red tulle showed out the bottom couple inches (that was an adjustment the bridal shop had actually not been as surprised by as Sylvie had expected, or maybe they just got used to lots of little customizations). It was probably just one song later that Sylvie came back out into the reception. Magically, Matt appeared at her side with a very welcome margarita. He kissed her softly, smiled at Mom who was also leaving the room, then apparently took in the change to her dress.
“That’s pretty clever.”
“I thought so – no more worrying about tripping or someone standing on my dress.”
“What happened to no red under the white dress?”
“Oh, it turns out the material is heavy enough it didn’t show until I wanted it to.”
“What else red do you have lurking under there for me?”
“What happened to ‘we’ll be too tired’?” Sylvie asked with a laugh.
“You know how I feel about you in red.” Matt practically growled, pulling her against him again. Thankfully they were in a somewhat dark side of the room, because this time when he kissed her it was not particularly appropriate to an audience.

“Matt.” Sylvie pulled back, running her fingers gently through his hair. God, he was handsome, and that look in his blue eyes, like she was the center of everything, she could get lost in him so easily and it exhilarated her, enticed her, and just a little bit scared her. Love was a many-splendored thing indeed.

“You two are the guests of honor, you cannot disappear for…whatever it is you young people call them now, a quick tryst. Save it for tonight.” Mom reminded, sounding mostly fond but a touch genuinely reproachful.

“We really should join the party.” Sylvie agreed.
“I know.” Matt kissed her, more softly this time. “Come on, if I’m going to dance badly, you have to be out there with me.”

Matt danced a lot, actually, though he usually had a drink in his hand so the alcohol probably worked its encouragement. He really wasn’t as bad as he said, and besides, most everyone got pretty drunk so they all danced badly and probably wouldn’t remember just how badly anyway. It was so easy to lose track of their guests, Sylvie almost felt bad, because she knew she wasn’t spending a lot of time with everyone – but this was also her wedding reception and she wanted to be part of the party. She did catch that her parents had engaged Nancy and Randy in conversation several times, and Christie seemed to be having a good time with Jason. Violet and Daniel (who was still around, to Matt’s chagrin, though Sylvie knew he didn’t dislike Violet’s boyfriend he just disliked that she was old enough to have a boyfriend) were great, and Caitlin was pretty much inseparable from Violet, and Ben and Griffin Darden were usually in the same vicinity – and pretty soon, so were the Herrmann kids. Matt danced with Heather a few times, but she was rarely without a partner as most of 51 kept her entertained. It seemed like everyone was having fun.

They cut the cake right around 9 pm, just as scheduled. She was actually pretty grateful for the dessert, but she also had two glasses of water with it because she didn’t mind being drunk but she had to get out of this dress tonight, so a certain level of motor skills was definitely going to be required. Plus, she wanted to remember her entire reception, not just the start of it. By mutual agreement, they had skipped any sort of smudging cake or icing on each other – and by mutual agreement what she really meant was she had threatened to cut off his balls if he ruined her make-up or hair in any way, and Matt had agreed to that.

Once everyone had some time to get and eat their cake, she threw the bouquet because she sort of liked the tradition and because her mother really liked it for whatever reason. When Violet caught it, Matt had made a nice little production of grabbing Daniel by the shoulders and escorting him off to the side for a “short chat” – the poor kid was shaking (at least at first, by the time they came back, he was laughing). She knew Matt could be intimidating when he wanted to be, but she so rarely saw those sorts of moods. Oh, he had moods, for sure, but not anything that scared her. Matt had absolutely refused any sort of garter tossing tradition. She was actually touched by his statement that he found it sexist and crude, and there was no way he was putting his hands up her skirt in front of all their guests, any more than he expected her to want to put her hands in his pants in front of their guests. Sylvie hadn’t really been looking forward to it, anyway, so she was hardly going to push him on it. So after the bouquet toss, it was right back into the bad-but-fun dancing. God, she needed to get Matt to take her dancing more often. Being in his arms like this, moving together to the music, it was wonderfully fun (and incredibly sexy, too).

“Uncle Casey! Dance with me!” Annabelle demanded, just when Sylvie thought she had managed to grab Matt for ten seconds of semi-quiet time. She was really starting to understand what Matt had meant about being too tired for anything tonight. At this rate, getting out of her dress was going to feel like a monumental task. She was tired, and part of her just wanted to go sleep (literally sleep) with her husband. Okay, a small part of her also wanted to do other bed-relevant things with her husband, but mostly, some quiet and some sleep. Matt released her hand, and instead held it out to Annabelle.

“You sure you want to dance with me? I’m not very good.”
“Uncle Casey.” Annabelle rolled her eyes. “No one is good at a wedding. Plus, I think you’re the handsomest guy here, and it’s always good to be seen dancing with the cutest boy.”
“Does your dad know you’re dancing with cute boys?” Matt asked, eyebrows raised.
“He’ll have to get over it. I’m twelve. Half the girls my age already have boyfriends.” Annabelle shrugged, taking over and leading Matt onto the dance floor. Sylvie was content to watch Matt dance with Annabelle, smiling at the thought of someday him doing this with their own little girl. Cindy and Herrmann came over, also keeping an eye on things – Lee Henry was dancing with Caitlin nearby as well.

“Congratulations, Sylvie.” Cindy hugged her again, probably the fourth time that night. “I’m so happy for the two of you.”
“Thank you, and thank you for everything you did – the kids have been so fantastic.”
“We were happy you thought to include us.”
“You’re family. Even if you weren’t mine, which you are, you’re definitely Matt’s. He really loves your kids.”
“Annabelle used to say she wanted to marry Uncle Casey when she grew up.” Cindy laughed lightly. “I laughed during your speech. He looked like a Disney prince, she always said!”

“I tried to tell her he’s too old for her but…I think she held out a tiny bit of hope for a few years.” Herrmann shrugged, grinning broadly. “Your dad’s a lucky man – his daughter chose well.”
“I had a few bumps along the way to get here.” Sylvie admitted, thinking mostly about Harrison. “But I think Annabelle can take care of herself, Herrmann.”

“Yeah, well, she’s got me and four brothers so she don’t need to.”

“And a bunch of uncles too, just in case.” Sylvie nodded towards Matt. “You think he’s any less protective of her than he is of Violet? He has Daniel terrified of him. And he loves that he’s terrified of him.”
“See, honey?” Herrmann turned to Cindy. “Time-honored tradition.”
“Violet isn’t as big of a fan.” Sylvie admitted. “But I think she knows it’s just that Matt loves her, and doesn’t trust her dad to do it.”

“Her uncle also isn’t going to be the one greeting dates at the door with an axe – if I let him, this one will.” Cindy pointed out with a smile.

“Yeah, well, I ain’t thinking about that right now.” Herrmann stated. “I’m gonna go cut in and dance with my little girl before she gets old enough she’s dancing with men who ain’t my captain.”

Dillon had arranged for their big official departure about fifteen minutes before the reception was officially due to close up at midnight. She had lost count of pretty much everything, including how many times people had hugged her and congratulated her, and how many drinks she’d had. She wasn’t too drunk, though, in part because Stella was seriously rocking the maid-of-honor gig and kept giving her waters along with the margaritas. Matt was visibly intoxicated, but like her, not nearly as drunk as he could’ve been, or many of the guests were – they’d paid a lot for that open bar, but it was well worth it with a reception full of firefighters and cops (most of Intelligence was there, Voight had called to personally convey his regrets, but he had his grandson in town for once, and while he’d appreciated that Matt had actually invited him, he wanted to spend that time with his family – Matt and Sylvie both understood).

They’d already packed for their honeymoon, because they had to leave for their flight out just after the early breakfast they were hosting tomorrow for the wedding party and families. She couldn’t wait to see the pictures from tonight, though, because she knew that she had missed some great moments – she’d heard about but not seen apparently a pretty epic picture of the Darden boys surrounded by all the firefighters from Truck 81, for instance. Plus, she hadn’t seen Terrence as the ring bearer, and things like that, because she was at the back of the line. But right now, she was tired, and she was ready for the announcement that they were leaving. They didn’t want to do anything fancy with it, just basically…yeah, an announcement. They were only going upstairs to a suite for the night. She grabbed Matt away from the guys from 51, shooting them a warm smile as the emcee started the announcement that everyone should line up in two rows to see the bride and groom off. She was a little nervous, because Kelly had asked to be in charge of this particular task and all she knew was confetti was involved. She and Matt took their place, though, with all their guests lined up creating a long path they had to traverse to get out the door. The emcee nodded at them, checking they were ready.

“Alright, folks, as we send off Sylvie and Matt to their first night of married life, let loose!”

She wasn’t entirely sure just how much confetti was involved. She didn’t want to know. If you normally might say it rained, this was pouring. There was red and black and silver and white and navy and mostly lots of red confetti coming down in what felt like a blizzard and it was a wave as they passed of just more and more confetti. She heard pops, knew that the confetti was being launched from poppers or knowing the guys at 51, possibly cannons, and she was thoroughly covered before they were halfway down the aisle. She couldn’t help laughing, though, as Matt tugged her through (he was used to zero visibility, which she felt like they were close to, all she could see were laughing guests and flying confetti). As they reached the door, Matt spun her and lifted her into his arms, kissing her soundly one last time to cheers from their guests – then they were out in the hall and Dillon closed the doors behind them. She was laughing delightedly still as Matt led her towards the lobby and eventually, their room for the night.
“Oh my God, Matt. Look at this.” She held up her find – it was a little miniature version of the Fighting Goat logo for Truck 81, part of the confetti pieces were fighting goats. There were also little navy Florian crosses for the CFD. She was coated in this confetti, but she wondered if it was possible to keep it. It was perfect.

“Look at you.” Matt responded, tilting her chin up to kiss her softly as he led her out of the elevator and to the door of their suite.

Chapter 16: Aloha

Chapter Text

She napped for a good part of the flight to Honolulu. They had a short layover there, only about an hour and a half, then the short flight over to Maui. She had never been to Hawaii and had wanted to go since Kristen Nielsen went there on vacation when they were in sixth grade and came back with the best pictures and amazing stories. Plus, because they were only going to be gone about 8 days, Matt had pointed out that they probably didn’t want to fly much farther than 10 or 12 hours. Besides, as much as she was up for an adventure trip with Matt someday, she didn’t think she wanted an adventurous honeymoon. She wanted to relax. And have lots of sex. They had had the predicted no sex and too little sleep on their wedding night. Stella and Mom had been practically right behind them to their suite, so they could help her out of her dress, and her hairdo. Matt had stayed in his tux until they’d left, of course. By the time wedding attire and her make-up was removed, it was well past midnight and they had to be up for a 7 am breakfast to make their flight and sleep was more necessary than sex (though, it was a close thing, watching Matt strip out of that tux).

Matt’s decision to ‘save time’ in the morning by not shaving had resulted in some teasing at breakfast, mostly because she didn’t think anyone besides her and Kelly had probably ever seen him with any kind of shadow. He even shaved while on shift to maintain that clean-cut appearance all the time. Firefighters had to be beardless (something about a seal on the SCBA) but Matt was always careful to look completely kempt. She liked it, though, the beard shadow. He looked really hot with a bit of scruff. She kept just kissing him randomly, in part because she could and she loved him but also just to feel his uncharacteristic stubble against her face and lips.

Once they landed in Maui, there was a resort vehicle and driver to take them and two other couples to the resort. It was an hour drive, and they ended up making a little small-talk. One couple seemed disengaged from each other (both mostly on their phones) but the older couple – Mark and Sandy – were here celebrating their 40^th anniversary and were excited to know she and Matt were on their honeymoon.

“We came to Hawaii for our twentieth anniversary and it was so wonderful, we wanted to come back again this time.” Sandy filled them in. “We didn’t have a honeymoon, we couldn’t afford one – we got married just out of college. We were living in Detroit at the time, we’re in North Carolina now, and just the idea of going to Hawaii, well, I couldn’t have imagined. Of course, that was 1980, things were different, people didn’t travel quite like we do now.”
“It wasn’t that different.” Mark chuckled. “We were just broke. We got lucky for our twentieth and I had a work convention here, got to bring my wife along partly paid for by the company. Now, our kids are grown and it’s amazing how much more money and free time we have.”
“Oh, how old are your kids?” Sylvie asked.

“About your ages, I’d guess.” Sandy laughed lightly. “Kate is thirty-seven, Mandi is thirty-five, and our twins, Justin and Jason, they’re thirty-one now. All married, living their own lives. We have four beautiful grandchildren – none from the boys yet, but they’re still newly married, I suppose. Our girls are both in North Carolina, near us, Jason is in Georgia, and Justin is in Virginia – so none too far from us, I suppose. What about you two, any children?”

“Not yet.” Sylvie shook her head. “Soon, though, we hope.”
“You’ve picked a beautiful place to get started on trying.” Sandy laughed again. The conversation shifted to more mundane topics, but Sylvie enjoyed chatting with the older couple. She wondered if in forty years she’d come back here with Matt and tell another young couple about their kids.

Sylvie had never stayed at a “five star” hotel before and it was a bit strange to have their luggage all handled for them and immediately taken up to their room. The full service even included unpacking for them, apparently, and she was a little nervous about that because she’d brought a few things, nothing horribly embarrassing, but there was some underwear and one particular bikini she brought that wouldn’t leave much to anyone’s imagination of what she intended to do on this trip with her husband. Then again, she supposed that the ‘honeymoon’ bit probably gave that away even without any sexy little garments and hotel employees probably saw a lot of that. It was just about dinner time here in Hawaii, but it was nearly eleven pm in Chicago and they were both tired. They were both also hungry, so while their luggage was taken to their ‘residence’ they got a table in the less-fancy of the restaurants. The food, just a chicken teriyaki sandwich for her and a bacon burger for Matt, was darn good, but they were both ready for bed. She had a distinct feeling this was going to be another night in a row of no sex in favor of sleep. That was okay. Morning sex was always nice.

Matt was almost always awake earlier than she was. Maybe it was just that even on his days off he was usually off to some project early so he rarely slept later than 7 am unless he’d really gotten to sleep late. Of course, 7 am in Chicago was 2 am in Hawaii, so his sleep schedule was going to be considerably off. She wasn’t surprised when he woke her up the next morning. Spooned up behind her, he was kissing along the right side of her neck, his right hand roaming her body pretty darn freely, but what truly woke her was when that hand dipped between her legs. She spread her legs a little, leaning into his touch, even if it was still over her pajamas. Apparently, that was all the encouragement Matt needed, as he pushed himself more tightly against her, and she could feel him already hard against her butt.

“Good morning.” Matt whispered, as his hand slipped beneath her shorts. The feel of his calloused but gentle hands on her sensitive skin was always so good. “I was in the bathroom this morning-“
“I’m not sure this is a sexy start to-“
“and I noticed something. Someone didn’t bring her pill packet.” Matt was slowly but firmly thrusting against her in a smooth rhythm that matched the pace of his fingers sliding between her folds and along her cl*t and puss*.

“I told you, Matt. I want to start our family.” She guided his wrist and hand, encouraging him to touch her harder, move a little faster. “I want to have your baby.” She groaned in disappointment when Matt removed his hand, then moved away from her. He pulled her onto her back, then was over her, looking down at her, and okay, this she liked. Not that she disliked being on top, but she also loved him being on top. He met her eyes firmly.

“Are you sure, Sylvie?”
“I’ve been sure for months, Matt. I just didn’t want to be a pregnant bride – otherwise, I would’ve been knocked up already. So, get to work, mister.” She grinned at him, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair fondly. He smiled for just a moment, then he fell on her almost literally and any idea she’d had about a round of luxurious slow morning sex was out the door. It didn’t really matter to her. She just wanted him, anyway she could get him.

They spent the morning with the do-not-disturb out, because they basically alternated between sex and sleeping until lunchtime. Finally, their stomachs won out and they got dressed, and headed for the poolside café that was close to their building within the resort. She grabbed several pictures, sending them back to Mom partly as an apology for forgetting to text last night when they got in to confirm that they’d arrived safely. After lunch, they went for a walk along the coastal path, content to spend a few hours just hand in hand in a beautiful location. Then, before dinner, he had managed to talk her into a helicopter tour of Maui. It was beautiful, but helicopters scared her just a little – Matt didn’t mind her practically sitting in his lap at all, though. After dinner, they went back to the room and after another round of ‘trying’ they were both exhausted with the time change still throwing them for a bit of a loop and they had another relatively early night.

The morning of day 2 started with horseback riding. Matt was getting better, she had to admit, though there weren’t going to be any of those wild-and-free galloping-down-the-beach moments for quite a while. At least he wasn’t really scared of the horses anymore. In the afternoon, they joined a group wine tour on the other side of Maui, which was great fun, not least because they got to meet back up with Mark and Sandy entirely accidentally. It was great, though, because Mark and Matt could talk hockey (in Maui, in late summer, they talked hockey – at least Sandy could empathize with her) while she and Sandy got pretty lit on good wine and talked about anything that wasn’t hockey and whether the Red Wings were going to be better than the Blackhawks this season. She bought a few bottles to take back to Chicago, thinking they’d make a great accompaniment to the anniversary cake in a year. The trip back to the resort, however, was an exercise in slightly embarrassing temptation because she was drunk (just a little) and her husband smelled really good (not just a little, a lot), and an hour and a half trip back like this was kind of torture. She glanced at Matt, who smiled at her, kissed her softly, and slipped his arm around her shoulders to pull her as closely against him as he could.

“I love you, babe.”
“I love you, too.” She sighed, as his fingers tangled gently in her hair. Then, his hand moved to rubbing her shoulder gently, gradually stroking further down her arm until the backside of his fingers were brushing her breast on every pass. Even through her bra, it was turning her on like no one’s business.

“You’re not helping.” She whispered to him huffily.

“Depends on the definition of helping, doesn’t it?” He whispered back. He leaned in, basically kissing her ear, keeping his voice pitched so low, “I’m helping get you ready for me, aren’t I?”
Well, one good turn deserved another she figured. She shifted closer to him, as close as she could get, and rested her hand low against his abs. She didn’t even have to move it, much, just once in a while let her fingers play with the hem of his shirt. She knew exactly what having her hand just above his belt would do to him. Matt was beautifully suggestible like that. As they pulled back up to the resort, she lit on another beautiful revengeful idea.

“Mark, Sandy, why don’t you join us for dinner, unless you have other plans?”

“Oh, we’d love to, wouldn’t we, Mark?” Sandy agreed on their behalf. Sylvie took advantage of the hotel staff and had the wine taken to their room, so they could go straight to the restaurant. Small talk kept them entertained while they ordered, but once that was done, it was probably natural that the topics got a bit more involved. They ended up discussing, of all things, home renovations since it turned out Mark and Sandy had bought a historic home when they retired to North Carolina and were in the midst of planning some of the renovations to update and restore it. They were restoring the exterior, but more renovating the interior.

“Oh, you’ve gotten him started now.” Sylvie laughed. “Matt’s a contractor, you know.”
“I thought he was a firefighter?” Sandy asked.

“Both – he’s a captain with the Chicago Fire Department, but he also runs a construction company.”
“It’s not much of a company. I’m the only regular employee.” Matt downplayed, as always.

“And he just finished our house, which is not quite as old as yours – built in 1890. You said yours was around the Civil War, right?”
“Just after.” Mark nodded. “So, Matt, what did you do about updating the plumbing? Ours was last updated I think around World War II. Might be the original indoor plumbing, in fact.”

“Are you wanting to add bathrooms?”

The men talked shop, with some input from both wives of course, but Sylvie preferred to discretely tease Matt instead of concentrating on the dinner or the conversation. Her hand started on his back, rubbing gently up and down, but very much concentrating on that spot between his shoulders that was so beautifully sensitive. Gradually, she let her hand slip lower, and lower, and lower, until she was caressing the small of his back, fingers occasionally dipping into his jeans, just passed the waist, trailing along the top of his ass. He shifted in his seat a few times, but managed to stay focused on the conversation. Late in the meal, he took her wrist, moving it out from behind him. He kissed the back of her hand, right next to her rings, and then set it down in her own lap. Fun-hater. She turned to talk to Sandy, but after a short moment, slipped her hand over to Matt’s thigh instead of her own. She started a caress close to his knee, but moved up until her hand was in his crotch. It was blocked from view by the table of course. Still, she didn’t think they were exactly perfectly fooling Mark and Sandy. Finally, everyone had finished both meals and drinks.

“I think it’s time for us old people to head for bed, and you two young people, well, you’re heading for bed too I expect.” Sandy laughed lightly.

Matt waited until they were inside their room before he pounced on her. He had her pinned to the sofa in the living room in what felt like in a second, and she wasn’t about to complain. She took a moment to be grateful she’d opted for a cute sundress this morning, because his hand travelled completely unimpaired up her thigh, right to the already damp gusset of her underwear. His lips never left hers and his tongue never slowed its attack on hers, as his fingers explored familiar territory. He didn’t delve inside her underwear though, his touch heavy enough to feel fantastic but too light to really push her any closer to what she wanted, just enough to tease. Gasping, she pulled away from his mouth.

“Matt, please.”
“Please what?”
“Put your fingers in me. I want your fingers in my puss*, please.” He groaned throatily, and his mouth moved to kiss heavily along her neck and any exposed skin down to her cleavage, but he was also nicely obedient and shoved her underwear aside so his fingers finally moved across her bare skin. He teased her cl*t for just a moment, but when she grabbed his forearm hard, trying to get him to move and do what she’d asked, what she needed, he baulked. “Please, Matt, I need you. I’m already so close. Put your fingers in me, finger f*ck me, please.”
He plunged two fingers into her, curling them just right and there was definitely no easing into anything now, his played her puss* perfectly like a damned instrument, and in what felt like just a few breaths her internal muscles clenched violently around his fingers as she came hard. She tried to catch her breath, and after a moment, loosened the death grip she had on his forearm. That might leave some interesting bruises. He pulled his fingers from her, grinning rather smugly at her, and that just would not do. She took his wrist again, bringing his hand up to her face. She smiled at him, kissing his palm gently, then sucked the two fingers that had just been in her puss* into her mouth. She laved each finger, savoring the taste of herself on him.

“f*ck me.” Matt’s voice was so low that she almost wouldn’t have known it was Matt’s. She took advantage of his…it was almost a stupor, to shove him back into the sofa and then sit astride his lap. She kissed him, she would never get tired of kissing him. She also determinedly batted his hands aside as she undid the buttons on his shirt, then his belt, and finally the button and zipper on his khakis. She slid her hand inside his pants, easily finding his hard co*ck. She pulled it out gently but firmly.

“There he is.” She sighed, her hands sliding along his length slowly. “You have no idea how good you feel in my hand, Matt. Big, and hot, and hard, but silky smooth. So big. Makes me feel empty, knowing how full I could be, with you inside me.”
“I want you, Sylvie. Want to be inside you.”
“I want that too. Am I wet enough, Matt? Am I open enough for you? You’re so big, baby, is my puss* already gaping enough from your fingers to take you?”
“sh*t, when you talk like that, f*ck.” Matt groaned, but his fingers did find her puss* again, shoving past her underwear once again. Two, then a third, working her open just a little more, and she rode his fingers for a moment. His thumb found her cl*t, and she jerked against him. She sat up on her knees, and his fingers pulled from her then as she stood all the way up.

“Babe?”

“Just taking my underwear off.” She reassured him, leaning down to kiss him as she did just that. “You’re so big, baby, it chafes us both if you try to f*ck me with my underwear just pushed to the side. You take up every millimeter between my legs, Matt, and it feels so good, baby, make me feel that good, please.” She sat back down on his lap, lining up his co*ck with her entrance. Then she waited. His blue eyes met hers, and she smiled a little teasingly at him. “f*ck me, Matt, make me yours.”
“Mine.” Matt did growl this time, pulling her down onto his co*ck then pulling her into a hard kiss. She met each of his thrusts, both of them pushing for harder, faster, deeper with every movement until she screamed and came apart, just before he exploded inside her. As they both came down from their respective org*sms, she couldn’t help wondering if she’d know, when she got pregnant, if she’d just know the minute it happened, or at least the day. Would she wake up tomorrow and just know?

Chapter 17: Keu Aku

Chapter Text

She spent the morning in the spa while Matt went for a round of golf – you could even rent clubs apparently in Hawaii (probably expecting people to not want to pay for the luggage fee, Sylvie figured but what did she know about golf?). Apparently the course here was supposed to be great but Sylvie had never golfed and had no interest in golf. Conveniently, Matt had zero interest in the spa. He was up earlier than she was again, but that just meant that she got to join him in the shower which was an invigorating way to wake up for the day. Who needed caffeine when you had shower sex?

After the spa, she had a light lunch, not knowing what Matt’s plans were or even exactly how long it would take him to play eighteen holes of golf. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to have fun and do things he liked, but she hoped it wouldn’t actually take all day. She was feeling selfish. She wanted to spend this time together, but he’d been so excited about golfing in Hawaii that she’d not said anything to him. Besides, it felt a little clingy to tell him she wanted him within like three feet of her at all times on their honeymoon. She thought about going down to the pool, but then Matt would have to find her after he came back from golfing. Instead, she settled on their lanai, laying in the big round chair lounger thing, enjoying the sun and working on evening out some tan lines because it was a private lanai and she didn’t need to worry about just how skimpy this bikini was. Technically, it was a ‘microkini’ and Foster had bought it for her as a joke but Sylvie had seen promise in it if only to soften some tan lines. Not that she got much tan lines – she was so pale naturally that she usually wore a lot of sunscreen because sunburns were painful and not healthy either. She would never wear it to a beach or anywhere someone might see her (she wasn’t entirely sure it was legal in all places) but this was a private lanai on her honeymoon so the perfect opportunity.

She dozed off in the sunshine. It was so peaceful here, with the breeze and the sound of the ocean, and the distant sounds of people doing…well, whatever it was, it sounded like people having fun. She wasn’t quite asleep, but she was definitely awake when Matt stepped out onto the lanai.

“sh*t.” She opened her eyes, seeing Matt looking, well, a little attacked actually.

“How was golf?” Sylvie asked, smiling at him.

“What the hell do you call this?”

“It’s a bikini.” It was, technically.

“No, I’m pretty sure a bikini involves fabric.” Matt shook his head. “This is…I think it’s mostly string.”
“I might as well get some use out of that wax job I paid for a few days ago.” Sylvie shrugged, because yeah, if she hadn’t gone almost-bare down there, she was not wearing this thing, even in private, but she had so…why not. Although, she’d gotten ‘some use’ if you meant that Matt had gone down on her several times, but still. “Don’t you like it?”

“Like is not the word.” Matt shook his head again. “I don’t even know the word. I mean, you’re basically naked, in the sunshine, and, f*ck it’s…” He trailed off, but she barely bit back a laugh as he adjusted himself in his shorts. Like might not be the word, but he certainly didn’t dislike it that was clear.

“Come here, Matt.” She beckoned him to lie down next to her. He must’ve already kicked off his shoes, she noted – he tended to do that as soon as he was ‘home’. His boots usually ended up just inside the door of the house. She curled into his side, laying her head on his shoulder. She sighed, wrapping her arm around his waist. “Can we just stay right here, forever? Just you and me, in the sunshine, nothing to do but lay here in your arms.”
“You, in that…whatever it is.” Matt replied, his voice low and throaty. His hands began to explore, sliding along her skin, which really was almost entirely bare. Scraps of fabric covered her nipples and what was left of her pubic hair, but that was about it. “God, this thing is designed to get me hard, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much.” Sylvie giggled. “It’s not like I can swim in it. I wouldn’t even go down to the pool or the beach to lay out in it.”
“Good.” Matt almost bit out. He tilted her chin up and kissed her firmly, his tongue sweeping into her mouth possessively. “You’re mine, and this thing, whatever it is, is mine, and this view is mine.”
“Matt.” She sort of gasped out his name, as he kissed down her neck, then followed a line down between her breasts. He still hadn’t shaved, and his uncharacteristic facial hair felt just the right sort of harsh against her skin. He wasn’t allowed a beard as a firefighter, so she was going to enjoy this brief opportunity to experience the sensation.

“Let’s go inside.” Matt said, pretty much talking into her sternum.

“I have a better idea.” Sylvie told him, pulling him back up for another kiss, and then pushing him back to lounge against the pillows again. Her hands slid down his chest, then up under his shirt, pushing it up just enough to clear the waist of his shorts and leave an enticing strip of bare skin. She moved a little carefully to straddle his lower legs, and couldn’t help leaning in to kiss that strip of skin, letting her tongue drag along it, as she unbuttoned and unzipped his shorts.

“f*ck, Sylvie, here?”
“It’s a private lanai, on the third floor. No one can see us.” Pushing aside his shorts, she slipped a hand inside to massage him through his underwear, lips and tongue and teeth focusing on that lovely little tempting trail of hair that ran between his belly button and her ultimate prize. Unable to resist an idea that had been in her head for at least several months, she flicked her tongue into his belly button quickly, before moving down and over just a bit, to a patch of skin that always made him buck under her, and closed her lips around it, sucking hard, following with a short nip, then laving her tongue along it, and repeating the process until she knew she had a left a welt. She was going to love seeing that mark, like her own little ‘property of Sylvie’ mark, for days. Matt clearly didn’t care, he was rock hard beneath her hand and struggling to control the thrusting of his hips. She pulled his co*ck out of his underwear, lightly raking a few of her fingernails up his length, causing him to arch up beneath her. He might be quiet, but there was no mistaking how much he was enjoying her attentions. He was already hard, she had no chance of fitting him in her mouth, but she used her mouth and tongue on him as she could, and it didn’t take long before she knew he was going to come. She loved this, seeing Matt dangling at the end of his control, something she really didn’t see when he was inside her when he came because she was usually coming at the same time and completely distracted from just watching his pleasure. Maybe because he was too big, and relatively few women really tried it with him, he reacted to oral attentions faster than he did anything else. She’d read something, and decided why not try it, and she had memorized the right angle, got his head into her mouth and hummed. The effect was pretty much electric, and a sense of proud victory rushed through her as he came in her mouth but most importantly, he did it loudly.

“f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, Syl, f*ck!” Okay, so it was only loud for Matt, it was really sort of strangled, but that counted in her mind.

She moved back up his body, letting him catch his breath and come down from his org*sm. His eyes opened, and his hands were back on her in a minute. She could still see a whole lot of dirty in his eyes. He kissed her, delving into her mouth again to let their tongues tangle together. He kissed down her jaw, then her neck, and down to her tit*, his hands already moving to brush aside the scrap of fabric at her puss*. She knew what he wanted, what he was going to get because she was pretty much powerless against him when he’d look at her like that, like he might actually die if she told him ‘no’, which was ridiculous of course but he looked like he truly believed it anyway. Still, she grabbed at his head and squirmed beneath him enough to get his attention and bring his eyes back up to hers.

“Take me inside, Matt.”
“But-“
“I said no one can see us, but I know you, and if you live up to the amount of dirty in your eyes right now, Matt Casey, people are going to hear me. You may be able to be mostly quiet, when you come, but you and your tongue always make me scream.” His slightly put-out look transformed into a smug grin, but at least he picked her up and took her inside, shutting the door behind them.

She should have known that Matt Casey did not have seven days of lounging around a beach in him. He didn’t even really have one. He was, she knew this, physically incapable of actually just taking a day entirely off. If he wasn’t working at a paid project, he was doing something – golf, hockey, baseball, fishing, something, with his day. So of course he wanted to be busy on their honeymoon. She introduced him to tennis (somehow, he’d never played before) which he was annoyingly good at pretty much right away. They went for hikes, including two trips just seeking out waterfalls because those were a thing for them now. They went out on a chartered catamaran (with other guests, it wasn’t a private trip, but it was still amazing to be out on the water like that). They learned how to go snorkeling together – which he was good at right away but then, he had great lung capacity and was used to breathing through an apparatus so…unfair advantage. He talked her into going ziplining, which, yeah, never again. Not even basically landing in his arms made that fun. Matt had loved it, of course. It helped when you had never developed a normal fear lobe, which she suspected Matt was missing entirely, like he just didn’t get scared like normal people, not of normal things – emotional things, sure, but like physical fear he seemed to not even know was a thing. He even talked her into surfing lessons. Their instructor said she was pretty good for a first-timer, but Matt was stupidly athletic and picked it up straight away. Mostly, they had a lot of fun and got pretty tan for two people from Chicago. She talked him into a few afternoons just lying on the resort’s beach, lounging with her. She had a feeling that her fire-engine-red bikini (much more substantial than that microkini, but still pretty skimpy) played a big part in convincing him but she was fine with that and it wasn’t the only reason she refused to wear it for any sort of water-based activity (she had more substantial suits, because she was not having a wardrobe malfunction).

The last night, she wanted to do one last special thing for Matt. She knew she didn’t have to, but then, she had purchased the outfit already so why not go for it? The microkini had been a huge hit. She had a feeling this would be too, and unlike the microkini, she had purchased this and she’d done so with Matt’s particular tastes in mind. So, she dressed up for their last dinner in Hawaii. The little black dress was form-fitting and relatively demure, it’s only really ‘sexy’ aspect being its close fit and deep plunge in the front that combined with her carefully-selected bra gave her fantastic cleavage. Still, she kicked him out of the bedroom so she could get dressed in private, because she wanted to see his face when he got the whole outfit together, including her red stockings and red shoes – he liked red, after all. When she stepped out in the living room of their suite, she just watched his reaction. Oh, he liked the dress well enough, but the stockings definitely got his attention.

“Those things…” Matt grinned at her playfully. “Your legs look even more fantastic than usual in those things. Am I supposed to keep my hands to myself now?”
“Yes, you are – at least through dinner.” Sylvie replied airily. “Speaking of, we have a reservation, Mr. Casey.”
“I can already imagine my dessert, Mrs. Casey.” Matt winked at her, kissed her softly, and then they headed down to the restaurant. They enjoyed a leisurely dinner, her with a seared ahi and Matt having a steak with Crab Oscar. If Matt’s left hand regularly ended up caressing her right knee, sometimes slipping just a bit higher, well, she wasn’t going to complain. By the time they got upstairs and back to their suite, neither one of them was doing very well at keeping their hands off each other. Sylvie had not been entirely prepared, when she started dating Matt, for just how often (even in public) his hand drifted to her backside. Even when he wasn’t particularly turned on, he preferred to hold her hand and keep an arm around her shoulder or her waist, but yeah, Matt liked to touch her. Give him the merest excuse, his hands wandered pretty freely. Fittingly enough, she liked to touch him, especially when he was dressed nicely and smelling fantastic and the 9-day growth of beard did surprisingly nice things to his facial structure (though not, she thought, the part that was growing down his neck – if he ever could keep a beard, they’d talk about that). They kissed hotly all the way through the living room of the suite, but once they were in the bedroom, Sylvie gently pushed him away.

“Sit on the bed, Matt.”
“Why? You gonna dance for me?” He asked with a grin on his face, but it was clearly a joke; until his expression changed when she didn’t deny it. “sh*t, are you really gonna…?”
“Would you like that?” She asked, not exactly have planned to dance per se, but she could.

“Baby, anything that ends up with you naked I’m going to like.” Matt replied honestly.

“I wasn’t planning to-“
“Ah, then don’t change your plan. I always end up really liking your plans.” Matt assured her, and obediently sat on the edge of the bed. She noticed that he did take the opportunity to pull off his shoes and socks. There wasn’t really a sexy way to do that, so he usually just went for subtle. A moment later, she realized one small problem. She’d gotten the zipper up on the dress, but for some reason, couldn’t quite get it down. Walking over to Matt, she smiled a little bashfully at him.

“I can’t get the zipper started.” She turned, and felt his fingers at the base of her neck, then the zipper opening a couple of inches, then he stopped.

“Can I unzip it all the way or do you want me to just get it started?”
“All the way is fine. But don’t actually take my dress off. Just undo the zipper then hands off.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Matt obeyed, and patted her side as he released the zipper. “All done and I see bits of red lace that is seriously making me crazy already.”
“You like red on me.” Sylvie teased, as she turned around to face him again and took a couple steps backward so it would be easier for him to see all of her. Tugging the dress (carefully) forward, she shrugged out of the top of it, letting it fall and gather at her waist, as she then pushed the dress down to the floor and stood back up, fully revealing the red lace (mostly lace) bra, underwear, and garter belt she was wearing. She stood there, letting Matt stare, and maybe she should’ve felt self-conscious, but when he looked at her like that, all she felt was sexy and beautiful and damned proud that a guy who could probably have just about any woman in the world (or at least in Chicago) wanted her, had chosen her.

“That is so f*cking hot.” Matt rarely managed eloquence, especially once blood started heading south. She neither expected nor wanted poetry at this point anyway. He shifted, then smiled at her. “Am I allowed to stand up or…?”
“Nope. Sit there for now.” Sylvie winked at him, then turned around and let him see the back side because, well, Matt was kind of an ass man. Not that he didn’t appreciate nice legs or good tit*, but there was a reason his hands wandered to her ass a lot – he was an ass man. Giving him a moment, she bent over, looking behind her to see Matt definitely staring, like a giant cat ready to pounce, he shifted again, then held himself back.

“Sylvie, come on. Can I stand up now?”
“Nope. Just stay where you’re at, mister.” She replied, bending a little further and wiggling her ass. It should’ve looked and felt ridiculous, really. It didn’t, mostly because of the low groan from Matt that let her know she was having the desired effect.
“You’re killing me here.”
“You want to touch?”
“f*ck yes.”
“Stay there.” Sylvie ordered, standing up and turning back around. She stepped towards him, trying her best to look sultry and put sway into her steps, like strippers or at least a runway model or something. She stood over his legs, and he took his cue wonderfully, shift back more fully onto the bed, so she could kneel over his lap. She’d never actually given a lapdance before, but she had a pretty good idea of the method, which was basically just grinding against him. His arms went to wrap around her, and she stopped moving, grabbing his forearms.

“Hands off.”
“Seriously, Sylvie?” Matt groaned, but obeyed. She stood back up, and he protested immediately, “Hey, my hands are off-“ he stopped, when he realized she was just turning around. Knowing him as she did, she gave him a bit of a dance to a beat that was entirely in her head (she really should have prepped music for this), her ass practically in his face, then she slowly moved down until she was back on his lap, the growing bulge in his pants rubbing between her cheeks. His hands moved to her thighs, and again, she stopped moving.

“Matt, what did I just say?”
“You can’t expect me to remember anything with you doing that.”
“You remember exact positions of every firefighter, obstacle, victim, everything, in a pitch black fire ground, but you can’t remember to keep your hands on the mattress?”
“You are a lot more distracting than any amount of fire and smoke.”
“Hands off.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Matt sounded more reluctant, but he did as she said. She ground against him for a few moments, then reached up to release the clasp on her bra, sliding it off and tossing it aside. She stood back up, then sat back down facing him again. That lasted just a moment, as she thrust gently in his lap, then she turned around again, being sure to bend over and pretty much touch her toes while facing away from him. The almost pained moan he let out was one of the hottest sounds she’d heard in a long time. This time, she sat back, and leaned back until her bare back was pressed against his chest. She reached out, grabbing his wrists and bringing his hands to her tit*.

“Now, you can touch, baby.”

Touch he did. His hands stayed on her tit* for just a few moments, then they wandered freely, including no small amount of time running over the stockings on her thighs. She hadn’t been sure how Matt would like garters, but she’d figured no guy hated them. Seems like he liked them. She wanted to take this farther, though, and tried to stand up, but he held her against him.

“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Just going to take my underwear off.” She smiled at his disgruntled question.

“Mmmm, I guess that’s okay.” He let go, and she stood up, taking the opportunity to kick off her heels as well. She went to unclasp a garter, but Matt stopped her. “Leave them.”
“Really?”
“Yes, f*ck, the red is so f*cking hot against your skin and it feels…f*ck, amazing.”
“Take your shirt off, baby.” She encouraged, “Let me see you. I want to feel your skin against mine, Matt.”
“Come here.” He peeled his shirt over his head (thank God for polo shirts) and grabbed her, pulling her against him and kissing her until she was pretty certain she was going to pass out from a lack of oxygen. Sometimes it was a delicious hell to have a firefighter kiss you – he had fantastic lung capacity. She was distracted enough by breathing air again, instead of trying to breathe him, that she was face down on the bed before she realized it. Matt was over her, his lips and tongue trailing random patterns along her back, she could feel him shifting his weight a few times over her legs, and then she realized, as her legs came into contact with hers, that he’d shed his pants, and probably his underwear at the same time. His attentions gradually moved lower and lower down her back, then he was kissing and nipping and licking across and over her backside, gently nudging her legs apart so he could settle between them. It spread her wide, his shoulders were his broadest point, and this was a new angle for this, at least for her. She felt his mouth on her, his tongue gently probing along her already quite slick folds and then finding her cl*t. He’d never gone down on her from this direction before, and God, when he licked at her puss* the scruff of his beard scraped along her cl*t with the lightest but most intense sensations and if his hands hadn’t held her hips down she might have bucked like a bronco. As far as org*sms with Matt went, this one was relatively small, but oh, damn, it felt so amazing, and when his mouth pulled back, he replaced it with two fingers, pressing into her, stretching her, finding new angles of attack, and he slid up her body, until his chest was pressed against her back while his fingers still f*cked her open.

“You like that, Sylvie?”
“I loved that.” She admitted because anything else would’ve been pointless.

“Only one problem with it.” Matt’s voice was gravelly and low and damn, it was sexy. She had a sudden rush of some feeling she couldn’t quite name, maybe possession, that no one else was ever going to hear him like this, never again, some other women might’ve in the past, but from now on, this part of Matt was hers and hers alone. His teeth nipped gently along her neck. “I’ve done some pretty extensive research, and I’m pretty sure that no matter how many times I make you come like that, and I do love to make you come like that, it’s not going to do much to help us start a family.”
“No, no it won’t.” Sylvie moved her ass back a little, seeking friction with him, knowing, feeling, how hard he was. She expected him to either flip her over or pull her up onto her knees, and damn, she’d love a good f*ck from behind right now, he stretched her so amazingly in doggy, but all she got was a third finger pressing into her. He lifted his weight off her, using his own thighs to encourage her to close her legs. She didn’t want to close her legs, though she couldn’t actually close them all the way with his fingers and hand where they were, but Matt was quite a bit stronger than she was, and she wasn’t going to fight him. “Matt, please. Please, baby, f*ck me. I want you inside me. I want you to come in my puss*. Please. Let’s make a baby, please.”
“f*cking hell, my wife…” She didn’t know exactly what he was trying to say, but it was definitely approving. She thrust back onto his fingers.

“Give me your co*ck, Matt, please. I’m ready, it’s fine, please.” His fingers pulled out of her puss*, but she could feel him holding her open, and then he was there, pushing into her, stretching her open, a familiar in-and-out rhythm starting, going deeper just that little bit each time, and as his weight settled back over her, she could feel all of him pressed against her, it should’ve been heavy but it was mostly just incredibly hot, the feeling that even if she wanted to, she couldn’t escape him, he was going to take her, and then he shifted a tiny, just the tiniest, bit and every push in and every pull out the head of his dick was hitting and dragging across that spot on the top wall of her puss* and she lost track of everything, time, place, universe, everything but the waves of pleasure crashing, crashing, crashing over her as he moved. She couldn’t breathe she couldn’t think, it felt like her entire body was seized up, and it was endless, she might’ve been screaming, she might’ve been silent, all she knew was his co*ck inside her hitting that spot relentlessly. Finally, her body seemed to give up and the final wave crashed, and oh, God, it was too much, he was too much, it all felt too much now, and it was possible to come so hard it hurt, yes it was, and then Matt tensed, going completely still against her, buried as deep in her as he could get, and she could feel his co*ck twitching as he came which sent painful electrical shocks along her own nerves.

“I think I just died.” Matt managed a few words moments later, but he still hadn’t moved from on top of her.

“Matt, I love you, so much, and that was…the most fantastic feeling, but baby, you are too big and it…kind of hurts to have you hitting those nerve endings right now.”
“Oh. sh*t, sorry.” Matt carefully pushed himself up, and off of her, his softening co*ck slipping from her. She stretched a little, and her legs parted more, as she felt him stand up from the bed. “That is the f*cking hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“What is?”
“You, like that, God, just…stay like that for a second.”
“Okay.” She was lying down, she could manage that, but she had no idea what was so great about her position. She felt a little like a starfish, spread out like this, she’d just been stretching out well-used muscles. Matt’s hands trailed up her back, gently, more a soft massage than anything that might lead to another round of sex (which she did not think she had in her tonight).

“I can see you, open and wet and leaking my come, and f*ck, Sylvie, this image right here is going to be what I go to any time I need to, uh, take care of myself.”
“Well, that’s fair. Can I roll over now? I’m tired, and after I take the stockings off, I’m thinking bed.”
“Yeah, of course, thanks for giving me that moment to stare.” Sylvie rolled over, meeting his eyes with a warm smile.

“You know why that’s fair, that you got that image for your mental files? Because I am going to be masturbating to this feeling, of me f*cked open and dripping with you, so it’s only fair that you are going to be masturbating to the image of it. Since you can’t feel it, can’t feel the sexy wet mess you’ve made of me.”
“You are going to kill me. Someday, I will actually have a stroke from the sexy sh*t that comes out of your mouth.” Matt leaned down to kiss her.

“Yeah, well, until that day, help me out of these stockings and then we need to shower and pack – we have to go back to Chicago tomorrow.”

Chapter 18: 9.5 out of 10

Chapter Text

Matt had to shave the morning they were due back on shift. His beard hadn’t gotten that thick in just ten days, but she really loved the look. She wasn’t sure she’d like him with a full beard, but the holiday stubble looked good on him. She kind of wished she could take a picture. But then, she also really liked that she was the only one who got to see him like this because he had to be clean-shaven for work, and she found him really good-looking clean shaven too, so really, no complaints either way. Still, she sat on the closed toilet, watching him shave.

“You’re just going to stare at me while I shave?” Matt asked, chuckling.

“I’m mourning the loss of my sexy stubbly husband.” Sylvie replied cheekily.

“I’m not sexy without the stubble?”
“With the stubble you’re a 10 out of 10. Without the stubble…” She grinned at him, winked, then reassured him, “you’re like a 9.5 out of 10. But I just like to watch you shave, not least because you always do it in just a towel. You look really good in just a navy bath towel.”
“Are you already ready for shift?”
“Yep. For once, I was up before you, sleepyhead.”
“Yeah, for some reason, the jet lag or whatever coming back messed up my system.”
“You ever think of shaving more than your face?” Sylvie asked, then wished she hadn’t because Matt nearly dropped his razor. Thankfully he caught it, because apparently Matt used an old-fashioned straight razor when he had to take off any substantial length of beard – she’d asked a few minutes ago because normally he used a safety razor.

“No, I can’t say I have.” Matt replied. “You…want me to shave…something else? Like…what?”
“Nothing, I just…women shave our legs, and our armpits, and even, down there – actually, I got a wax, but I’ve always trimmed down there, just tidied up.”
“Oh, well, I mean, I do that.” Matt admitted. He went back to shaving his face, as he could while talking anyway. “I don’t shave. I just use the uh, yeah, I trim it. Wouldn’t you think it was weird if I shaved my legs or pits or something?”
“I would actually.” Sylvie nodded. “I really kind of like your hair. It’s masculine. And it’s not like you’ve got way too much or a gross hairy back. Except, I was thinking, weeks ago actually, that sometimes hair gets in my teeth when I suck your balls, so if you trimmed or shaved that, it would – Matt, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just almost cut myself. I didn’t, I’m fine. Just…how about we don’t talk about you sucking on my balls while I’m shaving with a quite sharp instrument?”
“Okay. I was just wondering.” Sylvie shrugged. Her phone started ringing, and she sighed, getting up to answer it. “Ten bucks says that’s Foster, teasing me about getting out of bed with my husband and making it to shift.”
“I already got a text from Severide.” Matt’s laugh followed her out of the bathroom.

There wasn’t time for much of a welcome back, though she had gotten a pretty good laugh at the “Mr.” sign on the door to Matt’s quarters and the “Mrs.” sign stuck above her bunk. Chief was half-way through his briefing when the bells went off for a traffic accident that was all-hands on deck. It turned out, the small pile-up included a school bus full of second-graders on their way to a field trip: luckily none of them were seriously hurt, but it was a lot to check and juggle, and for the firefighters to safely entertain because yeah, little kids thought firefighters were the best sort of field trip, apparently. Total tally for the kids was a broken arm, two broken clavicles, and a broken leg: all four kids that were seated in the rear closest to where the bus had been struck. It wasn’t drivable – Capp had said something about the axel – but it could’ve been a lot worse. Plus, it had been kind of nice to have their first call back be one they went on together, even if all they got to do was catch each other’s eyes a few times on the accident site.

Chicago had no mercy on them for their first shift back. Every vehicle in the house was busy all day it seemed. Luckily, most of them were relatively easy calls, but it was still a lot of calls. On the bits of downtime that she could grab, Matt was always in his quarters, buried under paperwork that had backlogged while he was gone: his relief could only approve so much by CFD protocols. Anything that wasn’t immediate waited for the regular officer to return to duty. Plus, Matt was going to go over the call logs for while he was gone, and then the maintenance logs, and double-check that everything he’d left for his relief to do had actually been done. The only time he’d emerged for more than five minutes to grab a drink or a small plate of something to eat was dinner: that was only accomplished because the guys had ordered Portillo’s to be delivered, apparently in Matt’s honor. She had teased them about nothing being done in her honor, but then, since Matt was captain, his absence was actually more acutely felt. As much as the guys all bitched and moaned about his drills and the fact that he sometimes basically barely spoke all shift unless giving orders on a call and his occasional lapses in having a sense of humor (mostly, Matt didn’t have a lot of patience with certain types of humor), everyone at 51 knew they were damned lucky because Matt was pretty laid back about a lot of things and if he did have to chew a guy out, he always did it privately, not on a call or in front of other guys from shift. He preferred to deal with things in house, rather than write people up. He always had his guys’ backs. He worked his ass off and he led from the front. His replacement had been competent but apparently nearing retirement, dour, and preferred to command from outside a scene rather than in the middle of it (Sylvie actually wished sometimes Matt would do that, but she knew he never would). His guys had missed him.

Truck 81 came back without Matt from their fourth call of the shift. She panicked, but tried to keep an outward calm that she completely didn’t feel.

“Where’s Matt?” She asked Mouch, having come out to greet Truck as they got back. It wasn’t unusual for her, even before she and Matt had started dating, to check on him. He checked on her and she checked on him, it was a habit they’d gotten into after Gabby left when they both felt like they’d lost their person.

“He’s fine.” Stella reassured her, walking by.

“He rode along with 93, guy got caught in a machine, had to transport part of the gears with the guy.” Mouch explained a bit more thoroughly. “He may be a captain now, but he’s still the best guy we got for getting machines apart quickly on a scene or in an ER.”
“But he’s not…?”
“He’s fine.” Mouch smiled at her warmly. “Not a scratch on him, I promise.”
“Okay. I didn’t hear anything on the radio but…okay.” Sylvie nodded. She knew Matt did that sometimes, rode along in the ambulance to help out either with a large patient or a combative patient or if the ER might need a hand with something like getting a hand or arm or something out of a gear. Stilton on 93 would bring him by once the run was completed. Matt was fine.

No one really slept all that well in the firehouse, at least, not on most shifts. You sort of slept with one eye open, not because of fear of possible pranks or anything (Chief had a strict policy against pranks when the victim was sleeping – which apparently someone back in the day had grumbled about until Matt had made a cutting remark about preferring sleeping victims: she’d heard about the guy taking a swing at his own lieutenant and Matt putting him on his ass, then transferring him out, but of course, that was before Otis joined even, so she’d only heard about it). It was just that the bells might go off at any second and often did go off even if not for your company you had to wake up enough to hear them, realize it wasn’t you, listen to the guys from that company hit the floor running, and then try to go back to sleep while wondering how that call was going. It wasn’t very restful. It was comfortably familiar to be back in her bunk, but she missed sleeping all tangled up with Matt, too. She looked up, his light was still on and he was still at his desk, probably trying to clear the backlog as quickly as possible. It was already 2 am. He wasn’t going to sleep or even doze at all, most likely.

#Ambulance 61, car accident at Wolcott and Chicago# Sylvie glanced at her watch as she and Foster hustled to the ambo. It was 3 am. Car accident at 3 am meant most likely a DUI or a fell-asleep-at-the-wheel sort of accident. It was in a different district, too, so they were probably a support company which meant it wasn’t just a fender-bender. Matt had sent her a small wave as she left, and she’d managed a smile in return. She wondered if it might not be easier to not work in the same house as her husband – maybe it would be easier to not actually know every single time he was going to a potentially dangerous situation. Not that she planned on leaving 51, she just wondered.

The wreck was pretty nasty. A full-ton pick-up traveling west on Chicago had completely blown a red light (at least, that’s what the cop on scene had said) and the resulting wreck ended up with four cars involved. Sylvie was no crash investigator, but this looked like he’d been going a lot faster than the speed limit on Chicago, too. They were the third ambo on scene, and drew the short straw to get to transport the driver of the truck – why did it so often seem that the person who caused the wreck wasn’t the one most badly injured? The only not-stupid thing he’d done was apparently wear his seatbelt. Still, he had to be transported and he wasn’t exactly the most cooperative or apologetic guy, either.

“Sir, we’re taking you to the hospital.” Sylvie explained again. “You need to have your wrist treated, it looks broken, and you need stitches for the cut on your forehead from some glass it looks like. You also need to be checked for whiplash or any injuries to your neck from the impact, and have your ribs checked just in case.”
“I’m fine. I can refuse care if I want. I’m an adult.” Well, that was debatable, in Sylvie’s opinion, because his ID might say he’s twenty-six but he was acting like a twelve-year-old. God, aren’t drunks charming?

“Sir, you are visibly intoxicated which means you cannot refuse treatment because you’re not legally competent to do so. We are transporting you to the hospital, or these officers can arrest you and then we’ll transport you.” Foster replied firmly.

“I’m not drunk.”
“Of course not.” Sylvie really just wanted this to go smoothly. “But you’re probably a little shaken from the wreck, so we’re going to take you to the hospital, you’ll be checked out, and in a few hours, you should be ready to go.” She didn’t say ‘go to jail’ because yeah, the cops were going to arrest him it was just a matter of when they went through the procedure.

“Get off me!” The guy, who they’d managed to get onto the gurney, kicked out at her, catching her fully in the stomach and she fell backwards. Her head smacked the pavement, and she couldn’t quite catch her breath for a minute. By the time she shook off the stars and was breathing relatively normally again, Foster was at her side, along with Lieutenant Kajihiro from Truck 20.

“Hey, Brett, you okay?”
“I’m alright, just knocked the wind out of me.”
“That guy need treatment in the back?” Kajihiro asked. Sylvie had meant to ask him if he was adopted, but there was no really polite way to do that, but the man just did not look like his last name should be Kajihiro.

“No, just protocol says someone has to be in back with him.” Foster answered before Sylvie.

“Hey, Buckman, you got that guy?” Sylvie looked up to realize one of the officers had already cuffed the guy to the gurney, guess he’d gotten himself moved up in the timeline of arresting.

“Yeah, he’s gonna be nice and compliant.” The officer replied, then pointed to where he’d zip-tied the guy’s ankle to the gurney as well. It wasn’t any kind of standard protocol, but first responders tended to take it personally when you put one of their own down. Any rivalry between CPD and CFD was always forgotten when it came down to that sort of thing.

“I’m gonna have Johnson drive you guys – Brett, you good to ride in the front?” Kajihiro asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Make sure you get checked out while you’re there. Foster, you’ve got her, right? I’m not having Matt Casey on my ass about not looking after his wife on a call.”
“Matt’s a teddy bear.” Sylvie laughed a little.

“Uh-huh.” Kajihiro looked at her in blatant disbelief. “You hit your head harder than I thought. A good guy, and a damned good firefighter, but I don’t think I’d ever call him a ‘teddy bear’.”
“Well, no, he’d probably punch you. He’d at least think about it.” Sylvie laughed again. “I can handle my husband.”
“You can. I don’t think I have the same wiles you do. So, Foster, you’ve got her, right? She’s going to get completely checked out.”
“I’ll make sure.” Foster promised, and Sylvie rolled her eyes. She was fine. She was going to have a bit of a bruise on her stomach and a knot on her head, that’s it. Kajihiro helped her to the front cab of 61, though, and raised his eyebrows as she got in.

“You know, I went through the academy with your husband.”
“Yeah?”
“I remember him laying out Ted Griffin. He has a pretty nasty right hook. Just so you know, I think he’d take a call from you about your injury better than he will a call from me.”
“Seriously? You’re going to call him?”
“He’d do it for me, if it was my wife hurt on his scene. So yeah. Also, I’d rather avoid finding out first-hand if that right hook hurts as much as it looked like it did.”

“Matt, you didn’t have to come down here. It’s not quite 4 am. You woke up everyone on 81 to come check on me?” Sylvie couldn’t help rolling her eyes as Matt strode into her cubie in Med’s ER. She had a nasty bruise coming, and a tiny bit of a headache. She was fine.

“Kaji called me.”
“I thought he’d wait until after shift to do that.” Sylvie sighed. “I was going to tell you when we got back to the house. It’s not bad. I’m not even really hurt.”
“You hit your head?”
“I bumped it, basically.”
“You’ve been checked out by a doctor?”
“How come you can be shot and brush it off like ‘I’m fine, it’s nothing’ but I get a bruise and I get the third degree?”
“Because I’m a complete hypocrite and I’m not even sorry.” Matt replied evenly, but then his face broke and he was smiling a little, apparently at his own annoying hypocrisy. “Kaji said some drunk kicked you, knocked you over.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to be wearing any bikinis for a little while.” Sylvie held up her shirt, letting him see the developing bruise. It was almost impressive, if it didn’t ache so much. She was going to be sore, that was for sure. “I really did just bump my head, saw stars for a few minutes but nothing major.”

“Has the doctor checked you out, yet?”
“Will is going to be in in a minute.”
“Halstead pulled midnights? Thought he had enough seniority or rank or whatever by now to avoid that fate.”
“Like firefighters, we all sometimes get the fun shifts.” Will appeared behind them. “Not how I expected to see you two together for the first time after your honeymoon. How was Hawaii?”
“Amazing.” Sylvie wasn’t afraid to gush about that. “We had perfect weather every day and except for when Matt made me go ziplining to almost certain death-“
“You’ll note she’s perfectly fine, it was completely safe.” Matt cut in.

“-it was the most incredible experience. And the resort was beautiful. We even had a chef come to our suite one night to cook just for us. We ate on the lanai looking over the ocean and it was so beautiful and perfect.”
“Sounds like you had a great week. So, kicked in the stomach by a drunk, huh?” Will asked, looking at her paperwork.

“Guy kicked her, she fell backwards, hit her head.” Matt answered before she could.

“Matt, I can answer. But, yes, Will, that’s what happened.”
“Matt, you were on the call? Is the guy still breathing?”
“He’s in your ER for his injuries, from the car wreck. But no, it wasn’t our call.”
“Probably a good thing.” Sylvie pointed out. “Lieutenant Kajihiro reacted a little more rationally than you would’ve.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt him.” Matt paused, clearly reconsidering. “Much. Just restrained him.”
“Uh-huh.” Sylvie didn’t believe him. “You’re a little over-protective on regular calls.”
“I trust you to handle yourself.” Matt defended. “But any drunk puts hands – or feet – on one of my people, yeah, he’s getting restrained.” She didn’t bother to point out that no one at 51 (or even elsewhere) thought that she was just one of his people at this point.

“Okay, Sylvie, I’m just going to check your abdomen with the ultrasound real quick, make sure that the bruising is in the dermis, not anything deeper, and run a quick concussion protocol, and get you out of here and back in service.”
“Shouldn’t 61 be out of service the rest of shift?”
“I’ll determine her fitness after the exam.” Will looked at Matt like he should know that, which he should, it wasn’t like he hadn’t been through several dozen of his own wellness checks either on a site or in the ER. “Sylvie, do you want Matt to wait out-“
“Why? So he doesn’t see my stomach? It’s fine, he can stay.” Sylvie didn’t even need Will to finish the question. Will rolled over an ultrasound, and prepped the area quickly. “But the next time he gets a bruise on a call, I’m totally going to hover over him like he’s been mortally wounded, too.”
“I’m not hovering.”
“Matt, you woke up everyone on truck before 4 am to come check on a bruise I got.”
“It’s a big bruise. It could be more serious than you think.” Matt pointed out petulantly.

“It isn’t. It’s a bruise, that’s all. You took off your mask and were admitted to the hospital for smoke inhalation the night before our wedding and this is what has you worried? Oh, mister, you still owe me so much make-up sex for that.”
“Really? I thought the honeymoon-“
“Nope, the honeymoon does not count for paying off debts. It’s an expected thing. You have to go above-and-beyond for make-up points.”

“Challenge accepted.” Matt grinned at her, leaning in to kiss her softly, dodging around Will’s efficient ultrasound of her belly. “Anything we need to know, doc?”
“Looks good, but if there’s any new symptoms or problems, even if it’s several days from now, Sylvie, I want you to come in. Cramping, increased pain, tenderness, you know all the symptoms, just be careful and come in if you notice anything, okay?”
“Sure.”
#Truck 81, call for person trapped at 1425 South Western Avenue.# Matt’s radio crackled to life, and while he pulled a slight face, he also immediately replied,

“Truck 81 responding to person trapped at 1425 South Western Avenue.” Matt kissed her softly. “Go, I’ll be fine.” Sylvie encouraged. “Go save someone, do what you do. I’ll see you back at 51. I love you.”
“Love you, too. Thanks, doc.” Matt shook Will’s hand. “Take good care of her.”
“You know I will.” Will replied as Matt left. He nodded in the direction Matt had departed. “He have any particular reason to worry more that I need to know about? Any, uh, news that might be medically relevant to an abdominal case?”
“No, I’m not pregnant. Not yet.” Sylvie said. “I actually just started my period, today.”

“Okay, well, let’s run you through the concussion protocol and get you out of here.”

Chapter 19: The Caseys

Chapter Text

“Did you make that appointment with your doctor?” Matt asked, his arms wrapping very gently around her from behind. They had gotten off shift less than twenty minutes ago and were barely inside the house.

“I still don’t think I need to, but yes, I did. Just to make you feel better. So you owe me, mister. I expect amazing org*sms.”
“Do you want the down payment right now?” Matt turned her around, one hand drifting to her ass as he pulled her against him.

“I thought you had a project to go to today? At the…Gills?”
“Gilmores.” Matt corrected with a smile. “I am actually at the Herrmanns’ this morning – Max and Luke were wrestling, I think, and put a hole in some drywall in their room. I think Cindy is going to feed me lunch, so I’ll bring you a couple brownies. I’m meeting the Gilmores at noon, but I should be done by 4 or so – it’s mostly planning and budget discussions today, not much real work.”
“How big of a project is this?”
“For me? Not as much as you think. I’ll subcontract the plumbing and the electrical – I know how to do the electrical, but I don’t. It’s three full bathroom renovations, a budget of about 30 grand all in.”
“If you know how, why don’t you?” Sylvie asked idly.

“Well, for one thing, I’m not a licensed electrician – I had a journeyman’s license before I entered the academy, but it lapsed years ago.” Matt kissed her nose. “And I like to stay on the right side of the unions, given I’m in a union myself: I only hire licensed union guys.”
“I didn’t know you had a journeyman’s license.”
“My, uh, my dad was an electrician. He used to have me help out on sites. Probably broke a few laws, I think I was twelve when I started.” Matt laughed, so at least it was fond memories. Talking about his parents was like navigating a field of land mines. “I always had more interest in building stuff than wiring stuff, though. In fact, you’ll be happy to know, the Gilmores contacted me because of that new Instagram thing you and Otis and Ritter set up for the construction company.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Apparently, they loved the pictures you took, Ritter took, whichever one of you took, of our upstairs bathrooms – the warm wood of the cabinets and the white and dark gray tiling, though they want the exact color of our downstairs blue bathroom in the one for their kids.” Matt smiled, and kissed her more deeply this time. “Thanks for the business, babe.”

“You did the real work, I just put it on Instagram.”
“Which I never would’ve thought of doing. I’ve got two more emails from people who saw the Instagram and are interested in having at least a consult on my work.”
“That is because you do fantastic work. Our house is like the most perfect portfolio.”
“I try to do good work. You did a lot of the design.” Matt shrugged lightly, downplaying as usual. She might’ve helped pick finishes, but the real work was his. “What time is your appointment?”
“Uh, 1 o’clock. It was all I could get for today, it’s kind of short notice but you insisted that I get in right away.”

“You’ve had barely any appetite, you say your stomach hurts, and yesterday you said you’ve got bloating. You had a pretty serious blow to the abdomen-“
“Matt, that guy kicked me 19 days ago. I love you, and I know you’re kind of a worrier, but I’m fine. It’s probably a stomach bug or something.”
“Or, it could be…”
“Yeah, well, unless I charted my cycle wrong, I’m just ovulating around now, so, it’s not.”
“Really? So, since I owe you org*sms, are we trying tonight?”
“Oh, I bet you can talk me into something small and red tonight.”
“Damn.” Matt kissed her, backing her into the kitchen cabinetry. He picked her up, his mouth never leaving hers, and sat her on the counter, stepping between her legs. They kissed for several minutes, but finally she pushed him away, glancing at the clock.

“You need to head for Herrmann’s place, and I have a date with Chloe and Lily this morning.”
“Yeah, what for?”
“Well, don’t book yourself too full, because Lily wants to do some updates to Molly’s North. Nothing too big, it hasn’t even been open that long, but with revenue coming in, there’s a few upgrades she’s thinking about putting in and she wants our input.”
“I thought that’d be an Otis-and-Herrmann call.”
“I think Lily can talk Otis around to just about anything.” Sylvie laughed lightly.

“I know the feeling. Love makes a man pretty amenable.”
“Mm-hmm. So, you may be asked to do that work, just so you know.”
“More at-cost work? It’s a good thing I make good money as a captain.” Matt sighed, but it was clearly faked. “I really should charge Cindy more than a plate of brownies. But they’re so damned good. Can you get the recipe from her?”
“Are you kidding?” Sylvie laughed again, shaking her head. “Cindy will take that to her grave – she knows exactly how to bribe you, Matt Casey, and who doesn’t love a contractor that works for brownies?”
“The contractor. And his waistline.”
“Oh, yeah? What is it now? A 34? What a state.”
“33.” Matt pointed out a little sharply. “Maybe I should lay off the brownies.”
“Matt, your body fat percentage is single digits. If your waist is thicker than it used to be, baby, that’s called bigger abs.” Sylvie kissed him softly. “And it’s not like you can get any sexier, so just enjoy Cindy’s brownies, okay? I’ll let you know tonight what the doctor had to say, okay?”
“I’m gonna hold you to that. I just don’t…that bruise is still fading, and maybe I worry too much, but just…check on it. For me.”
“I’m already going, I have the appointment. Put away those big blue puppy eyes, seriously.” God, he could get a saint to commit unspeakable acts with those eyes. Was she really sure she wanted to see them in another generation? She would never be able to say no to her child if he or she had those puppy dog eyes like that.

She’d been shown back to one of the exam rooms at her general practitioner’s office several minutes ago. Granted, doctor’s offices were usually behind, but she felt like she’d given her urine sample (why did they always ask for that?) an hour ago. She checked her watch. Okay, so it was half an hour ago. Still, she was bored. She forgot to charge her phone this morning, so the battery was low enough she didn’t really want to sit here and play games on it. The nurse had asked a few basic questions, including information about her recent injury. Now, she just had to wait. Which was boring.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Sylvie. You’re here with a possible stomach flu?” Dr. Preston asked as she entered the room.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure if it’s like wedding hangover from the stress, but Matt is worried. He’s kind of a worrier.”
“Doesn’t he run into burning buildings for a living?”
“Among other dangers, yes.” Sylvie laughed. “He’s a complete hypocrite, but at least he admits it. He’d have to sever a limb before saying he needs a doctor. I have some bloating, stomach pain, and some loss of appetite and he insisted I come in. I know if it’s a virus, it’s pretty much just something I have to live through.”
“Sylvie, you stopped taking your birth control after your wedding, right?” Dr. Preston asked, checking the notes in the file.

“Eleven days before, when my prescription ran out I just didn’t fill it again. But I got my period last month and I should just be ovulating around now.”
“Did you get your period or did you have spotting?”
“It was definitely bleeding. Lighter than normal and shorter but not spotting. And if I got pregnant since then, it would’ve been in the last few days, since…you know, ovulation cycles and I can’t have symptoms already. I mean, my urine wouldn’t even test positive for longer than this.”
“We tested your urine, Sylvie. You’re pregnant.”
“No. I mean, how could that happen?” Sylvie paused, rethinking what she’d just said. “I mean, I know how that could happen, Matt and I definitely…have a sex life. But my cycle is, I’m just in the middle of it now.”

“Sylvie, I’m going to tell you to call your ob/gyn practice and get an appointment.”
“No, I can’t. I mean, I can make the appointment, but I can’t have found out without Matt. He, the only thing he asked was that he find out with me.”

She was sitting on the sofa, mostly pretending to watch House Hunters (which, Matt, of course had helpfully added to their DVR’s record list – right after every single Blackhawks match ever aired and the White Sox and the Bulls and the Bears because he was kind of sports-obsessed) when Matt got home. She was sipping tea, thinking, worrying, about everything, because while she had wanted to be pregnant and she wanted to have a family, she was just scared about everything. Well, almost everything. At least she didn’t have to worry about the father’s reaction.

“Hey, babe, how’s the hunt?”
“Huh?”
“Have you already decided which house they should pick?” Matt pointed to the TV as if to remind her what he was talking about as he took off his boots. He really did take off his shoes right inside whichever door he came in. She didn’t remember him doing that at Severide’s, so maybe it was just a ‘his house’ thing – though come to think of it, he hadn’t often worn shoes at the apartment.

“What, oh, no, I haven’t.” Sylvie tried to recover.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asked.

“Sit down, Matt.”
“What did the doctor have to say? Is it…is there a problem?” Matt joined her on the sofa, looking a bit apprehensive.
“Not a problem, but maybe…I don’t know. She didn’t know. I made an appointment for tomorrow morning with the specialist-“
“Specialist? What’s wrong, is it the trauma, do you have a bleed or-“
“Matt.” Sylvie almost laughed at him, but she didn’t because it was also very sweet how worried he was. “Let me finish. I want you to come with me, because the specialist I had to make an appointment with is Dr. Nguyen.”
“Nguyen?” Matt looked confused for a minute. “I don’t…do I know that doctor?”
“She’s Dr. Lewis’ partner, or one of them.” Sylvie waited, seeing him search his memory for a second, then realization hit his face.

“Dr. Lewis is your…so, wait, Dr. Nguyen, she’s the obstetrician who diagnosed your, uh, chemical pregnancy, right?”
“She’s going to be my OB, yes. But Matt, don’t, I see it in your eyes, please, don’t get too excited yet. Dr. Preston couldn’t confirm a pregnancy because it’s too early this cycle for me to have a positive test, and I had a period last month. So this could be another false alarm, something we just need to check on. But I want you there with me, no matter what.”
“What time is the appointment?”
“2 o’clock. It was the time she could get me on such short notice.”
“No, that’s…I’ll have to cut out of the Sanchez project early, but God, Sylvie, of course I’ll be there. I’ll call Angel Sanchez now, let him know a schedule change. Dr. Preston thinks you’re pregnant? How early is too early to have a positive test? I thought there was like day-after tests or something.”
“No, Matt, tests look for hormones in your urine – or in your blood, at a doctor’s office – and those hormones take time to accumulate, so it usually takes a while. I had my period two weeks ago, so I should just be ovulating now, so we’re several days too early. It’s best to wait for a missed period before you test, for accuracy.”
“Then why the appointment with the obstetrician?”
“Because Dr. Preston’s urine sample came back positive for those hormones. There are a few reasons that could be, and she thought a specialist would be best to look into those reasons. One of them is that I had another chemical pregnancy.”
“One of them is that you’re pregnant, though, right?”
“Maybe.” She couldn’t completely kill his hopes, in part because she wasn’t lying. Plus, his eyes lit up like that and he hugged her tightly. “It’s just maybe, Matt.” He pulled back, both hands on her face.

“Either way, Sylvie, you know I love you, right? If this isn’t the right time, it will be, someday, it’ll be our time. You don’t have to worry about disappointing me, baby, just the fact that you’re willing to…God, it blows me away. I love you so much.”

Matt joined her at Dr. Nguyen’s office a couple minutes after 2 o’clock. He was a little sweaty and dusty from work, but she was used to that by now – Matt’s preferred state seemed to be a little sweaty and dusty (or sooty) from work or some sort of sporting event. He looked around the small waiting for just a moment, then caught her eye and walked over to her.

“Hey, babe, sorry I’m a little late – traffic from the Sanchezes was a little heavy.” He kissed her softly and took the open chair next to her.
“Did you get enough finished? I know you went over early, but-“
“No, yeah, it’s fine. Angel and Claudia were great about starting early – in fact, I think Claudia likes it better, I was there just after she got the kids off to school and out before they get back from school. It’s usually home-owner preference that I not start projects in their house until 9 am or so, but it worked out. I got what I needed to get done done. Even if I didn’t, I’d still be here. Projects can wait. You are more important to me.”
“We might have to wait a bit.”
“I know how doctor’s offices work, Sylvie.”
“Really? I didn’t think you believed in going to the doctor unless you’ve severed a limb.” Sylvie stated a little pointedly. “You don’t even have a general practitioner, you just go have the CFD medics check you for your annual physicals. The closest you come to having a regular doctor is Will Halstead, who is an ER doctor because apparently ERs are the only thing you believe exist.”
“I have a neurologist.” Matt pointed out with a broad smile. “I know you know that because you complained about not knowing about it before.”
“Men are so lucky. No annual exams.” Sylvie thought of something and laughed lightly. “At least not for a couple more years. Once you turn forty, you get to have the fun of prostate exams.”
“Nope.” Matt shook his head. “I’m just fine with dying if-“
“Matthew James Casey, do not even – I will kill you myself and save the anticipation.”
“And you’re not certain you’re pregnant?” Matt asked, eyebrows raised. “What happened to the adoring wife I had this morning?”
“She woke up and realized you’re a jerk.” Sylvie’s attempt at pique was ruined by her laughing at him. She kissed him softly. “I love you, which means I’m going to bully you into all your doctor’s appointments because you are not allowed to go anywhere, mister. Not ever. You understand me?”

“Sylvie?” One of the nurses stepped out into the waiting area and called for her. She stood, and Matt took her hand as they walked towards an exam room.

“Sylvie, it’s good to see you again.” Dr. Nguyen came into the room just a couple minutes after they’d been shown into the exam room and just as her assistant had finished taking all of Sylvie’s vitals and basic information: height, weight, blood pressure, and pulse rate, all of those basics. She shook hands with Sylvie, then turned to Matt. “You must be Matt, I’m Dr. Alice Nguyen.”
“Matt Casey.”
“Yes, I see it’s now Sylvie Casey, congratulations you two. Now, let’s get to what you really want to know, right? Dr. Preston’s office took blood yesterday and sent it to our lab to confirm your urine test results. Now, with the known previous history of a chemical pregnancy, I’m going to do an ultrasound to confirm the results.”
“Okay.” Sylvie had been prepared for that, but clearly, Matt was not prepared for a transvagin*l ultrasound. In fact, he’d been a little shocked when the assistant had helped Sylvie into the stirrups. He outright blanched when the transducer was placed inside her. Sylvie kept her eye mostly on Matt, who looked a little like a kid who was being told to wait on Christmas morning, with a strong undercurrent of moderately repulsed by the procedure itself. It was pretty adorable. Dr. Nguyen needed less supervision than he did, certainly.

“Matt, you okay?”
“I just didn’t…I thought ultrasounds were…not there.”

“Come up here.” Sylvie waved him towards her, so he’d at least not be looking at what was going on. “You don’t want to see the full pelvic exam anyway.”
“It’s a little…” Matt trailed off for a moment. “It’s not at all how I’m used to looking at or thinking about that part of you.”
“Well, if you were looking at my vagin* the way an obstetrician does, Matt, I’d be pretty concerned about our marital relationship.” Sylvie laughed lightly. “It’s work for her, fun for you.”
“Isn’t that…doesn’t that hurt?”
“It doesn’t hurt, though it’s not, it’s a little uncomfortable.” Sylvie admitted. “But no, it doesn’t hurt, baby.”
“Women are amazing, you know that? If someone put that thing up any part of me, I would definitely not be as calm as you are.”
“A vagin* is pretty much built for insertion, Matt.” Sylvie reminded him, trying very hard not to laugh at him. She didn’t want him to not feel taken seriously or like he couldn’t share without being made fun of, but it was still kind of funny.

“The transducer is not much bigger than a tampon, Matt, it might feel strange for Sylvie, but it won’t hurt.” Dr. Nguyen assured him as well. She hit some buttons on the machine, then turned the screen. “Sylvie, Matt, here’s your first look – you’re definitely pregnant.”
“Is that…I mean, that can’t be days old.” Sylvie looked, clearly able to see the sack and the tiny little human inside it. Well, not human-shaped yet, but that was her baby, tiny as it was.

“No, based on these measurements and your hormone levels, I’d estimate that you got pregnant sometime a few weeks ago. I think you two managed a honeymoon baby.” Dr. Nguyen replied as she removed the transducer.
“But I only stopped my birth control at the end of August.”
“You did?” Matt asked. “I thought after the wedding we were going to start, you know, trying.”
“I didn’t see any point in getting the September packet of pills just to quit mid-month. I also thought, I mean, I read that it usually takes a month or so to get pregnant – at least – after you stop the pill.”
“Some women take longer than others, you must be on the short end.” Dr. Nguyen replied with a smile.

“That’s our baby.” Matt stared at the screen in obvious awe. “Is it…everything is fine, healthy, it’s where it’s supposed be implanted, everything is okay? It’s an IUP, right, not abdominal? She had her period last month, is that, is she okay? Is the baby okay?”
“Slow down, Matt.” Sylvie reached out, grabbing his hand. She glanced at Dr. Nguyen to explain, “his first wife had an ectopic pregnancy.”

“It’s in the uterus, Matt, right where it belongs.” Dr. Nguyen reassured. “We’re going to do a whole bunch of tests today, to make sure that we have all the information we need to take the best care of Sylvie and this baby, okay? You could be here a while. And since you’re here, Matt, we can take this opportunity to get a complete family history and genetic screening.”
“Genetic screening?” Matt asked, looking more than a little overwhelmed.

“We’re just checking for whether or not you’re a carrier of certain genetic conditions. We usually test one parent, then the second only if the first is a carrier since you both have to be carriers.”

“Does it matter which parent?” Matt asked.

“No, though usually the mother is the one most readily available.”
“Test me. She’s going to have enough procedures, tests, whatever – I can do this one.”
“We can definitely do that.” Dr. Nguyen smiled warmly.

“I don’t know my family medical history.” Sylvie admitted. “I’m adopted, I don’t know anything about my parents – I think my adoptive parents might have some medical records on my birth mother, but all I know is she was really young and single at the time.”
“We can get your personal history today, then, and Matt’s family history and genetic testing. First, we’re going to do a full pelvic exam and we’re going to get you guys a due date, okay? So you know when to expect your little one to arrive.”
“We’re pregnant, Matt.” Sylvie said, as it really sank in. He shook his head for just a moment, and he stared at the screen, which was clearly on a screenshot of the ultrasound. It was so tiny, but that was their baby. All of a sudden, she realized Matt was gasping a little, like broken off sobs, and if she hadn’t been in stirrups still, as his arms flew around her, she was certain he’d have picked her up to hold her completely to him. It was almost too tight, his grip on her, but as he sobbed in to her shoulder, and whispered frantically how much he loved her, she wrapped her arms around him, knowing that right now, for all he was gripping her as tightly as he could, he needed to be held. They were having a baby.