Happy Endings (Chicago Fire FanFic)

Chapter Thirteen

It took a little over three months for Amber to start to feel almost normal again. The pain in her stomach had finally faded, Will had started weaning her off the painkillers as soon as possible and she was relieved when she'd finally stopped taking them last week. It felt like a weight had been lifted.

But things weren't back to normal. She wasn't sure when it had happened, or why exactly, but somewhere during all of this her and Kelly had drifted apart. They'd each been trying to process their grief for the baby that they hadn't known that they wanted or ever got to meet.

She'd realised early on that they were both doing the same thing, burying their grief in work. Kelly had been picking up extra shifts, teaching classes at the academy and even volunteered himself to work out of other houses a few times. Meanwhile, with Will not allowing her back into the OR until she was off all the painkillers Amber had thrown herself into her research project and been spending almost every waking hour in the lab. It hadn't left much time for each other.

She'd thought for a while about trying to speak to him about it but quickly scrapped that idea. She hadn't got a clue what to say to him. She could understand how he was feeling, or at least she thought she could, it was painful to think about never mind speak about. Did he blame her for what had happened the same way she blamed herself? She wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer to that one. After all, he hadn't done anything. It was her who'd lost the baby, and maybe that was the reason why he could barely look her in the eye any more.

Apparently she wasn't the only one who had noticed. Amber had been down in the ER having been called to see a patient when Shay had spotted her sitting at the computer at the nurse's station.

"Hey Amber," Shay smiled, leaning against the nurse's station. "How are you doing? Feels like I haven't seen you in forever."

"I um..." She hesitated. The reason she hadn't seen Shay in forever was that she hadn't been to Kelly's place in a while. "I guess it has been a while."

"Everything okay with you and Kelly?" Shay asked, getting straight to the point as always.

Amber shifted uncomfortably under her friend's steady gaze. Shay already knew the answer to that so there was little point in trying to lie to her. "I don't know," She admitted quietly. "I feel like he's pushing me away."

Shay smiled sympathetically. "He's not good at things like this. Doesn't do emotions well at all."

"What am I supposed to do?" She asked, looking up at Shay helplessly.

Shay was quiet for a moment. "Honestly? If you want to talk to him about this then you're probably going to have to corner him and just get it out there. Otherwise, he'll just carry on avoiding you for as long as he can."

There was a long pause before Amber spoke again. "Do you... um... Do you think he blames me, for what happened?" She asked nervously.

"No way," Shay answered almost before Amber had finished asking the question. "I don't know what's going on in his head, but it's not that. You need to talk to him. Why don't you come to the firehouse later?"

"Okay." Amber nodded. "Thanks, Shay."

She felt slightly less confident about confronting him and tackling whatever was going on head-on as she walked into the firehouse five hours later. The absence of all of the trucks and the ambulance was a relief. It would give her a little time to work out what she was supposed to say to him. She made her way through the empty firehouse to his office and made herself comfortable on his bed to wait for him.

****

Kelly stifled a yawn as he wandered back through the firehouse. The exhaustion had set in while he was in the shower trying to wash the lingering smell of smoke off him. It had been a long day with more calls than he'd had in a while and he was praying the rest of the night would be quiet enough to let him get some sleep because he was dead on his feet.