From Hatred to Chaos to Love

C H A P T E R - T W E N T Y - T W O

ONE WEEK LATER

Kelly Severide woke up to the sound of screaming.

His eyes immediately shoot open and he looks over at Alyssa to find her sitting straight up, her hand over her chest, and heavily breathing

"Are you okay, Princess?" he says in a low, gravelly voice since he had just woken up as he sets a hand on her shoulder and she gives a small flinch.

"Nightmare," she mutters.

"Come here," he whispers, pulling her into him as he sets his back to the wall at the head of his bed. He wasn't fully sitting up but he was still leaning against the wall.

She buries her face into his chest as he rubs a hand up and down her back, the other one running through her hair.

"Everything okay?" Leslie Shay asks, knocking on the door before opening it and peering in and Kelly could feel the woman flinch.

"Yeah, just a nightmare," Kelly answers since he knew the brunette wouldn't.

Shay nods before closing the door and heading back to her room.

"I know I've told you this a lot, Princess, but I think you need to go see Dr. Charles," Kelly mutters as he slowly begins to rock the woman in his arms.

"I don't want to," she whispers, her voice low because of tiredness, her voice was sore from screaming, and her face was buried in Kelly's chest.

"I know you don't, Lys, but it'll be good to talk to someone about it."

"I talk to you about it," she answers.

"Someone else, Princess, and you still haven't told me all of it."

"What else do you wanna know?" she mutters.

"Everything, Lys," he answers, still rubbing her back. "Start talking to me."

"I do talk to you, you're the only person I talk to."

"You know what I mean, Princess."

"Can we talk about this in the morning, Kells? I'm tired."

Kells was a nickname that Alyssa had started using for the man. She insisted that she needed a nickname that only she could call him since she was getting tired of calling him Kelly or Kel.

"Yeah," Severide nods, kissing her forehead.

He looks over at his phone and double taps the screen so he could see the time: 3:23 am.

Sighing, he looks down at the woman who was already sleeping and he smiles.

"God, you're beautiful," he mutters, his hand still running through her hair, delicately working out all of the knots, going as slow as he could so he didn't wake her up.

For some reason, he wasn't feeling tired at all. He was enjoying holding the woman while he was awake and being able to tell when she was having a nightmare and stop it before she woke up screaming.

He brushes the hair from her face, his thumb lightly rubbing against her cheek and she lets out a small noise and moves into his touch.

Kelly smiles as he continues to observe the woman, the way her eyes moved underneath her eyelids, the way her small but strong frame rose and fell with every breath she took, and the way she was holding onto the pocket of his sweats, the other hand resting on the bed.

"I wanna know everything," the man whispers.

Alyssa Torres woke up seven hours later, in the same position as she fell asleep in.