I Am Morgan

Chapter 19: A Coffin That Small

"This is 81. I need a paramedic across from our firehouse!" Cruz's voice radios. They are meant to be out flushing the hydrants.

"What's the address?" Main asks.

"Look for our lights!" He replies.

"We take the ambo across the road and then grab our things heading inside. "We need you on the second floor. It's a child." They say.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"Kid hid in the laundry chute," says Otis and we run past a crying boy. 81 have broken into the wall of brick and opened up the laundry chute revealing a boy.

He's upside down, his neck twisted to the side and his entire body looks as though it's in the wrong place. His back is most likely broken.

"Grab his legs. He's losing consciousness." Casey says.

"Let's board him quickly. Hold on to me. One, two, three." We lift him on the board and take him to the stairs, putting an oxygen mask on him.

"You the mother?" I ask and she nods. "You can ride in the back with me. Let's go." I say and she follows us down the stairs.

There's not much I can do with the resources I have in the ambo, so we sit with him and I take his vitals before we hand him over to the doctors.

I'm filing paperwork when I see the mom holding her kids shirt to her chest, tears falling down her face. "What have you heard?" I ask her softly, walking to where she's stood.

"Um, the doctor says it looks bad. It's a damaged windpipe, so his brain was without oxygen." she tells me.

"Well, they've got great surgeons here. They'll do everything they can." I promise her, but I doubt he'll ever fully recover.

"You know Taye has been to your firehouse," she tells me.

"Oh, yeah?" I smile.

"His whole class went on a field trip last fall when the school year started. It was all he could talk about for days. He said he wants to be a fireman, help people."

"That's, that's sweet." I say, unable to say anything else because I know that today has ruined that chance for him.

"Gangs are always calling, but he won't bite. He's gonna be straight and narrow, and I believe that." she says.

I take her hand in mine, "I'm sure he will."

We finish up and then head back to the station. Yet again there's tension between Casey and Severide for some reason, splitting the house onto sides again. Hopefully it won't get as bad as last time.

"Heather Darden and me, we're just friends." Casey says, following Kel around as he carries a k12 that he's been fixing back to the engine. "She came over to talk and fell asleep on my couch."

"Right. Got it." He groans from the weight of the tool.

"I don't know what you want me to say here." Casey continues to follow him.

"I saw what I saw, Casey." He says and I begin to understand. "Sell your clean whistle act to someone else, 'cause I ain't buying."

"You can't imagine you might be wrong about something, can you?" Casey keeps pushing.

"I can imagine a lot of things, just not the idea of you rolling around with Andy's widow." Kelly replies.

Casey looks away, "Come on."

Kelly's not done now, even though Casey's given up and is trying to walk away, "Explain to me why Heather barely talks to me, but she'll sleep with you, even though you're the guy who put her husband through that window?" He says and I get up to separate the two of them but as I do shots outside are fired and it smashes the windows of the firehouse. I feel two pairs of hands tug me down and then I'm on the floor. Shots keep firing and then a set of wheels drive away.