The Best Stellaride Moment From Chicago Fire Season 5

Of all the white-hot romances kindled on NBC's hit action-drama "Chicago Fire," the slow-burning hook up known as Stellaride is one of the most-shipped pairings on the long-running series. Following the growing attraction between firefighters Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) and rescue truck lieutenant Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney), this love match has severely tested fans' patience for a long time, as these two strong-willed characters teased getting together, then grew apart, than came back together across multiple seasons and episodes.

As noted in the show's "Bad for the Soul" installment in Season 4, Stella and Kelly initially encountered each other way back in their training days at the firefighting academy. This development foreshadowed things truly heating up for the couple later in the same season, as they seemed to graduate from being good friends and colleagues to something much more intense. With that in mind, what was the best thing to happen in the Stellaride universe during the subsequent fifth season?

As it turns out, the above-noted fourth season of "Chicago Fire" finally gave Stellaride shippers some well-deserved hope when the two shared their first kiss behind Molly's Pub in the "Kind of a Crazy Idea" episode. Clearly, by the close of that season, the odds were looking very good that Stellaride had finally reached critical mass as far as escalating into a full five-alarm romance. And two episodes later, that premise played out when the two spent the night together in Kidd's apartment.

As Season 5 opens, Kidd and Severide are discovered in bed sharing a light-hearted, relaxed interlude, where for the first time they seemed at ease with being a couple. For long-suffering Stellaride hopefuls eager to see the two finally get off the fence and realize they're meant for each other, the scene was probably nothing short of cathartic. At long last, after numerous false starts, one of most ardently hoped-for relationships in all of "Chicago Fire" seemed to be on solid footing going forward. And this had to be a major relief for the "Fire" fanbase. 

Did the moment last? It did not. Later in the same scene Kidd discovers her violent ex-husband had been in her apartment and was out to harm her, Kelly, or both of them. Nonetheless, while their upbeat mood was quickly cut short, and the long-term tribulations for this duo were by no means over, this key interlude where it appeared that love had truly conquered all was the best Stellaride moment from Season 5 of "Chicago Fire."